PERRY for the Peckham family — VA

I have always wanted to adopt. From the time I first heard about adoption I knew that God was calling me to it. When Jon and I started dating I told him that if we ended up getting married we would be adopting. He agreed whole heartedly, though a little less enthusiastically as me at first. Ten years after we were married God gave us the most amazing little boy through domestic adoption. Originally we weren’t going to adopt a child with significant needs, but God had other plans. Our son has significant special needs and has amazed everyone with how much he can do at three and half years old. He never should have made it through pregnancy, never should have lived after his birth, and never should have survived to be adopted at two months old. But he did, and he’s thriving. We know firsthand what the love of an amazing God and the love of a family can do in a child’s life.

We were ready to adopt again, but things are more complicated the second time around when you already have a special needs child and only one parent working outside of the home. We were asking God for His child whoever and wherever they may be. We knew from the first go around that His plans are so much bigger and better than ours. We had been asking God to break our hearts for what breaks His. Then I saw a blog post about a boy who was aging out this year and my heart broke.

Perry was ten years old when this blog was written, but that was three years before. And he still didn’t have a family. This precious boy was abandoned when he was a year old, and has been in the orphanage since then. He has cerebral palsy and scoliosis. He has no use of his legs and therefore is wheelchair dependent. He is an outgoing child who loves other kids and outings. He is the resident storyteller in his orphanage and always has a ready smile. He has never gone to school because there is no wheelchair access in schools, but has had some special education at the orphanage and loves to learn. Perry turns 14 this July, and then becomes unadoptable.

This is an excerpt from the original blog post about Perry’s future if he is not adopted:   In (Perry’s country), orphans become unadoptable on their 14th birthdays. If Perry did not find a family, the same lady said, he would leave the orphanage soon after for an adult institution, where he would stay forever. People much older than he would live there, too, and potential for abuse would be rampant. At best, he might learn a handcraft to do day in, day out. He’d have no education, no future, no chance at self betterment, no hope for escape. Hidden from sight, he’d be far from the collective mind of a society scarcely bothered by niceties like wheelchair accessibility or education for the disabled. It was already awful; then she froze me with the words “human farm.”

Will you partner with us to bring Perry home and give him a forever family? To give him a hope and a future?

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

6/10/2019 — TA RECEIVED