When One Toddler Becomes Two Teens

September 24, 2019 Michelle Cuthrell

Our sweet friends started the adoption process nearly three years ago with a heart for toddlers. By the end of 2019, they’ll instead be bringing home two teens.

We know that all adoption comes first from a place of brokenness and loss … but we love hearing how God redeems that brokenness and begins making all things new ... especially for those the world has already written off with the label “too late.”

We asked this family to share their story of how God turned their hearts from the youngest in the system to the oldest. This is their story in their own words.

Guest Post Written by Juli Anna Vonderharr

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.

The International Adoption Crisis: Why It Matters

April 2, 2019 Michelle Cuthrell

International adoption is in crisis here in the United States.

Intercountry adoptions have decreased more than 80 percent since 2004, and many adoption advocates estimate that, at this rate, and without a change in what appears to be the anti-international-adoption bias and policies inside the leadership of the Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues, they may completely end by 2022.

Here on this blog, we stand 200 percent behind the rights of children to grow up not as orphans but in families; not in institutions, but in homes.

Research shows the long-term scars that institutional care and lack of early attachment leave on a child for the rest of his life.

And although we believe that a loving family in a child’s birth country is the most beneficial, so a child can easily maintain his culture and heritage, we know that it is not always POSSIBLE. And when an adoptive family is not viable or available in his or her home country, his human right to grow up in a family where he can enjoy attachment, protection and provision should not be relinquished.

Because in many cases, and for many sick, needy and special needs superheroes, it could literally mean death.

Calling All Orphan Warriors to Battle: International Adoption is in Crisis

April 1, 2019 Michelle Cuthrell

For the last few months, I’ve kind of fallen off the grid.

I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of being more present with the amazing people God has placed in my life — in my home, in my family, in my children’s school, in our little community. But in the name of investing in and pouring into the superheroes under my own roof, advocating for those still waiting for their forever families in China has taken a backseat to loving on the ones God has already placed inside our home.

But Orphan Warriors, advocating for forever homes for superheroes whose special needs are just superpowers in disguise can’t possibly sit on the back burner anymore.

BECAUSE INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION INSIDE THE UNITED STATES IS IN CRISIS.

And if nothing changes, the most generous, well-resourced, well-educated country in the world could grow deaf to the voiceless, the vulnerable, the most medically fragile and the most emotionally needy, all who deserve the privilege of FAMILY.

And the children hurt the most by a nation of people who stop running to them?

The ones languishing in orphanages with special needs — because THOSE are the children Americans more so than people of any other nation are equipped and willing to adopt.

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