Being the Light at the End of the Quarantine Tunnel

December 13, 2020 Michelle Cuthrell

Can I just be honest?

Like everything else in 2020, it’s been a discouraging year for orphan advocacy. 😢

The NO-TRAVEL orders for families waiting for ready-to-come-home superheroes in foreign countries has been just devastating.

The NOISE surrounding very public disruptions and dissolutions has cast a long and grim shadow with lots of implications for other adopting families.

The NEEDS of 2020 – families overwhelmed with their own children’s educational needs, me being the very first among them, in a time when they’ve been cut off from the normal resources that surround them, means margin is nearly nil for advocates and prospective adoptive families alike. Online physical therapy means parents now ARE the therapists; all-virtual schooling means parents automatically become half-homeschoolers. And keeping tiny humans alive and educated and exercised and fed in a pandemic when they can’t participate in their normal mental and physical health activities has nearly consumed most of the physical, emotional and spiritual energy that many of us less-capable humans have within us. (Supermamas out there rocking out Covid life, I am cheering you on all the way … as I tuck myself into bed at 8:29 each night. 🥱)

But here we are at the end of 2020, and although OUR circumstances may be changing soon, the circumstances of the 600,000 mostly special needs angels still waiting for forever families in China and the more than 17 million double orphaned children around the world WILL NOT.

They remain in “forever quarantine.”

Fighting for the Option of Adoption: National Adoption Awareness Month 2019

November 1, 2019 Michelle Cuthrell

According to UNICEF, there are 132 million orphans in the world — children, by UNICEF's definition, who have lost one or both parents.

13 million of these have lost both parents.

And this number — it doesn't even take into account the hundreds of thousands of children who have been abandoned, including the more than 600,000 abandoned reported children who now dwell in Chinese orphanages. (NGOs inside China report that number of children closer to 1 million.)

Because those children, though they LIVE like orphans, technically have living parents who abandoned them and thus, don't meet the criteria to be counted as "orphans." (With no parents present to call their own, we identify them as orphans on this blog. Because no child chooses to be abandoned.)

And yet, we in this country of luxury where even our vehicles have their own homes often cover our ears and turn the other way and pretend like this isn’t a crisis.

That it’s really more of an orphan inconvenience.

A problem.

A challenge.

One that governments and agencies and countries around the world should really begin to solve.

All while 13 million double orphaned children — more children than the entire population of the country of Haiti — wait.

The Introvert Who Wasn't: Celebrating Two Years Home

August 15, 2019 Michelle Cuthrell

I remember being concerned.

We had already received pre-approval to make the 3-year-old boy with the 5 million dollar smile and the monogrammed “C” on his shirt our son, and we had submitted an update request to learn more about this child who would soon share our last name.

At the time, we knew three things:

1. He had cerebral palsy.

2. He supposedly had cognitive delays.

3. He was our son.

So when we received the Bridge of Love update on this little guy a month after receiving our pre-approval, I could hardly click through the email fast enough.

His hobbies and interests and personality and passions were this beautiful and mysterious gift I couldn’t even wait to unwrap, and as I read each sentence over and over again, I felt God just intertwining my heart with his. I felt so hopeful and at peace about the way I imagined this little personality integrating into our home.

Until I saw them — the words that terrified me and made me wonder if we really had heard God correctly in the first place.

“Quiet.”

“Very shy”.

“Extremely timid.”

“Will not initiate contact with other kids.”

And I knew it.

He was going to die.

Orphanage life was not going to kill this beautiful, bashful soul.

Our loud, rambunctious, Nerf-playing, floor-wrestling, family of anything-but-respect-your-own-space-and-quiet brood of boys was.

Telling H1S Story

August 1, 2019 Michelle Cuthrell

So let’s have a real little family discussion.

Although I’ve stayed somewhat active on the social media page (check out the Facebook page if you want pics, videos and updates of these superheroes who are eating me out of house and home), this girl has clearly updated the actual physical blog exactly zero times since the first week of April.

But it's not just because I'm the worst blogger on planet Earth (although this is totally true).

It's because, for the last couple of months, I've had the pleasure and privilege of partnering on another ...

Be Their Voice, Tell Their Story

April 3, 2019 Michelle Cuthrell

Orphan Warriors, international adoption is in crisis here in this country. (Read all about the crisis HERE.) And that means special needs orphans around the world are in danger of losing their opportunity to grow up not in an institution, but in a HOME.

For many of these superheroes whose special needs are superpowers in disguise, a family literally means the difference between surviving and thriving, between life and death. (Read about why this matters HERE.)

And we in this Orphan Warrior community refuse to sit idly by while an entire nation of people slowly grows deaf and indifferent to their plight.

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