Website name change

Sorry for posting so little. We've been having a great time with our precious little Jade.

Our web name will be changing. If you are using www.bringdarlahome.com that won't work any more.
You can find this page through http://jadesjourneyakadarla.blogspot.com/

Jade is starting to repeat some words!

:)

She's Home!!!

We've been home a week and doing super well. We are all adjusted back to Pacific time and it only took a few nights for Jade to start sleeping through the night. She has acclimated to her new home faster than we expected. It's as if she's known us her whole life.

 

China is crazy. I can't believe how huge it is. We never left enormous city- even though we traveled to 3 different Provinces; it was like a cement jungle. The drivers are incredibly talented. People, bicycles, motorcycles and other cars come out of no where every few seconds. Watching traffic is like watching fish. They actually don't have as many accidents as you would think. The drivers are very alert and expect the unexpected. Believe it or not we felt quite safe through it all.

The air quality is incredibly poor. Ninety percent of the population smokes. It was very hard to get away from it. Even on our non smoking floor in the hotel the hallway was rank with smoke.

We didn't get to do much site seeing. We hiked on the Great Wall for a short distance, that was all our hearts could handle. It's incredibly steep and uneven. We also walked around a lake near where Jade is from one day. Most of our days were spent doing the necessary paperwork to get Jade her visa, passport, etc. We had a guide at all times which was vital. There is no "winging it" in China. We had absolutely no idea what anyone was saying or have any understanding of food on a menu, let a lone government documents. There was no possible way of completing the mission correctly or at all without our wonderful guides.

When we first met Jade, we were in a conference room with 7 other families. The nannies descended on the room with 8 kids, handed them off to their new families and departed within seconds. I can't even tell you what the person looked like that handed Jade to me, it was all so fast. And within seconds the room was like pandemonium. There was crying and tons of commotion. Jade held it together pretty well considering the boy right next to us was hysterical. She just looked around with a tear drop in her eye. By the time we got back to our hotel though, she was all smiles. She's been that way ever since.

 

She is the happiest baby I've ever known. She is also very sharp; she imitates everything. Nothing gets past her watching eyes. She's also very outgoing and ready to have fun at any time. Thankfully she is one of the easiest babies I've known. 

Thank you all for helping us rescue such an amazing child! She has great things to do in life. We feel privileged to have a part in that. Thank you!

 

Also, we raised the final amount to receive the matching grant from LifeSong! Thank you all and thank you Costa Rica! So much came from dear friends and family in C.R. Thank you, each and everyone near and far!

Donations so far

So far $449.24 have been donated towards the matching funds of $3,000
Thank you so much for helping! Please continue to forward the message.
9 days left to donate!
Thank you!

Click here!

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=472X293AAH4AS

 Thank you again!

How it all began

       Gabriel is turning 6 this week! He was the one that turned our lives right side up. He was diagnosed with Down Syndrome at birth and although that seemed, at the time, to be a terrible thing, we've learned that it was one of the best things that could have happened to us.

      He is our pride and joy. He loves us more than we could have ever imagined. The victories have been far greater than the struggles. There have definitely been struggles but the joy he has given us has made it all worth it.

      We've been thinking about a sibling, as wonderful as he is, for him for about 5 years now. We kept waiting for life to get easier, finances to get better, etc. But Gabriel is getting older and we don't want to wait too long. The waiting list to adopt a child within the United States diagnosed with Down Syndrome is many many years long. So we knew that wasn't going to work.

      We found Jade's story and picture last year and just fell in love with her. We knew she was the one that we were supposed to rescue. She was born in China and left in a box on the street with a blanket and her birth certificate when she was 2 months old.

      Special needs orphans don't have much of a chance of survival. I can't believe what happens to them. After the age of 4-5 they are sent to mental institutions where most of them die the first year. They are so undernourished, under loved, tied to beds and never gotten up, we'd all languish and die fast too.

It's a terrible thing. We love our little boy so much, we can't bare the thought of that happening to him or any child. We wish we could save them all. So we have to start somewhere, somehow. 

     Gabriel has already saved a life. Jade will also have a legacy of saving lives. Together, they have a beautiful purpose. For us, they are here to save us, change us and make us better people too. We have so much to learn from them.

     "It's time for us to do somethin'", says Matthew West.

Please help us do something. We have been approved for a matching grant of $3,000 through LifeSong for Orphans. That means we have to raise $3,000 in the next 5-6 weeks. Please help us take advantage of every bit of that grant. Any amount will make a difference as it will be matched!

These donations will be matched by C6 Fund up to $3,000!


o Checks should be payable to “Lifesong for Orphans". In the memo, note  Solano #4464 to assure it goes to the correct account. 

Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744. 

You can donate online here. Unfortunately, Paypal reduces the donation with a 2.9% a fee & .30 per donation.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=472X293AAH4AS

Lifesong has been blessed with a partner that underwrites all U.S. administrative and fund-raising costs. That means 100% of your donation will go directly to the adoption.

Thank you!

 

o NOTE: In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.

o Individual donations $250 or more and yearly donations totaling $250 or more will receive a tax-deductible receipt. Receipts for donations under $250 will gladly be sent upon request. Lifesong is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization.

Jade's Birthday is coming!

Jade will be turning 2 on May 24th! We are sad that we won't be there with her for her birthday BUT this will be her last birthday without her family!

In honor of her 2nd birthday a very generous man has offered a matching grant of up to $2,000 for travel!

If you are able, would you be open to donating $2 to her Reece's Rainbow account for her plane ticket home?

http://reecesrainbow.org/70134/sponsorsolano

Click on the yellow donate button on her page.

Two thousand dollars $2 at a time means a lot of people. Would you please share with everyone you know and ask if they would be able to help fly an orphan home to her family?

Thank you so much for all your help and support!

Getting closer

Thanks to this beautiful lady, Twanna Turner, and Austin Morgan her amazing guitarist and the Interact Club and their leader, Denal Green from Oakmont High, we are getting closer to funding the saving of this beautiful baby girl.

Together, we had an amazing event on April 5th and raised another $6,000. We are now only $22,000 away.

It looks like we are on track to travel in July. We are waiting on permission from Homeland Security to bring Jade back. Once we have that paper, we send it to China and then about 4-6 weeks after that, they send us permission to travel. It won't be long now!

Thank you to all our supporters. Without you, we couldn't save this child.

Ways to help

Thank you so much for your desire to help us save Jade (Darla is her web name) and to go on and save many other children. The cost is exorbitant but there is nothing we can do about that. We are still about $28,000 short of what we need by July. A quarter of the cost will be spent on airline tickets alone! If you know anyone with airline miles that needs a tax write off, we would be grateful for donated miles. :)

We are doing everything in our power to save but it's more than we can do alone. We are so grateful for your generosity. 

All donations are tax deductible; 100% of the donations will go to saving Jade.

Donations can be made through the link to the right using PayPal.

Or mail a check to:

Jade's Journey
2351 Sunset Blvd. Ste 170-906
Rocklin, Ca 95765

Checks made payable to Reece's Rainbow
Write Solano-Darla in the memo


Sometimes these world problems seem so big we don't know what to do. Together we can make all the difference in the world for this one and that will set us on a path to do even more. We have to start somewhere. We're starting here.

Thank you for joining us in our mission to save these beautiful children!

Last Minute Dinner Tickets

Last minute dinner tickets available.

$40 a plate

You can purchase tickets at the door but please call and leave a message or text your dinner choice so we have enough food for all.
916-532-1745

Saturday, April 5th

Doors open at 6:30 no host bar and mingling
Dinner served at 7:30
Twanna Turner Concert at 8:00
Salsa Dance Lesson 9:00


The Ranch House on 851 Old Ranch House Road, Rocklin

Cajun Salmon w/Mango Salsa
Chicken Piccata
Vegetarian Pasta Fresca

China Acceptance Letter

We just received our acceptance letter from China! Jade is officially our daughter according to the Chinese government. Now we await the over night package of paperwork to send off to the U.S. government to finish up her Visa and permission to bring her home.
This has been an emotional experience. We are so excited to have passed each milestone in the process. If things stay on track, it looks like we will go to China in July.
We already love our little girl so much. It's unexplainable, really. It's hard to not have her with us.
Thank you for all the prayers and support! Not much longer now.

This is not Adoption...This is Rescue

We all know in our hearts that the children in orphanages are not okay. Governments around the world don't have the funds to take care of the children as they deserve.

What I didn't know was the children with special needs, like Down Syndrome or Cerebral Palsy, are separated from the other orphans at the age of 4-5 and are moved to a mental institution.

That's probably not good, right? But what can we do? Life goes on, or does it?

I found out this weekend, while doing research for a radio interview today, just how bad the mental institution is.

A friend sent me to a video by Ann Curry called The Dark Side of Serbian Mental Institutions. I think that video has changed my life. I thought that after we bring Jade home, we would be done. We did a good thing. Jade will have a great life and Gabriel will have a great sister. I didn't know that Jade would not just have a great life but have any life at all and be saved from a torturous death.

I didn't know that special needs orphans are tied to their beds 24 hours a day and wait to die. I didn't know that they're are children that have been tied to a bed and are now 20 years old having never moved their bodies. How long could a week be, if you were tied to your bed and not able to move, roll over? Imagine the pain! How long could 20 years be of this kind of torture? Imagine being fed only enough to keep from dying!

Now that we know, what can we do? To whom much is given, much is required. Please join me in asking ourselves, What else can we do? There must be something.

To start with, when we are done raising funds to rescue Jade, we will continue to raise funds for the other children on www.ReecesRainbow.org

What if families decided to give up something they don't really need? Maybe soda, maybe they could save the soda money, choose a child on RR and donate monthly for that child so that the family who would like to adopt that child could actually be encouraged knowing they don't have so much to raise because we've helped in advance.
What about cable? Maybe there are families out there who don't really need to cable.

Our family already gave up cable and drinks a long time ago. So what else could we do? Maybe we could take the money we save from not using the clothes dryer and send that to a child on RR.  We discovered, when we moved and couldn't hook up our dryer and were forced to hang a rope in the garage, that the dryer was costing $200 a month! That was a shocker. It only takes about 3 minutes to hang the clothes. So 5 loads a week equals a total of 1 hour a month. What 2nd job could anyone find that pays $200 an hour? There you go.

We are compelled to make a difference. We don't know what that looks like today but we have to start somewhere. If we are faithful with little, we will be entrusted with much.

Please join us!

Welcome to our page and to Jade's Journey!

Darla is her web name with Reece's Rainbow but her name will be Jade Abigail when she joins our family.

We are working diligently to bring this little girl home where she will receive the medical care and all the love she needs to grow healthy and happy.

You will find here our benefit dinner announcement, our t-shirt fundraiser (virtually everyone who sees the shirt buys one - they are super cute), our amazon store and our family page for tax deductible donations. We will be adding more fundraising information as it develops.

Thank you for all the love and support!!!