This beautiful Indian woman is the inspiration behind Shad and I adopting from India. After waiting almost a year, my friend Michele and I met Sheba Sunayana May 1, 2008 for the first time. Let me start at the beginning...
I always knew that I wanted more children but my pregnancies with both Treyton and Cooper were difficult ones so Shad decided to have a vascectomy in 2001. After months and months of discussing adoption, Shad and I decided to explore our options. At first we thought that domestic was the way to go. We did a little research and after talking to a friend, decided to go through Foster Care. The more we got into it, the more we realized that it wasn't the right time for our family. I'm very emotional and felt that I would have attachment issues. After all, the main goal of foster care is to reunite families. A couple of years went by and my desire to have a little girl was still there so we opened the door to adoption once more. But the question still remained, what direction do we go? We prayed and prayed that God would lead us... and 5 months later he did. On a cold and rainy summer day in 2007 God answered our prayers. I stopped at the Sunoco Station and grabbed a cappuccino and the local paper before taking the boys to football practice. I hadn't bought the paper in years. It was rolled in half so I never saw what was on it. I threw it on the dash and away I went. About a half an hour later Shad met me at the boys practice and got in the car. He questioned the paper when he got in. He grabbed it and opened it. He questioned me again. Again, I never looked at it! I bought it and threw it in the car. He questioned me again!! What in the world was the big deal?! Well... on the front page was Sheba and her story. A story of one selfless woman doing Gods work in India. Here was a married woman with children of her own devoting herself to caring for orphans in India. Her work started with one begging child following her home from the market. The next day he brought a friend. This continued and her commitment to helping the orphans has grown to 152 children in her care today. She gets no government support and cares for these children on her own through donations. Depending on finances, the children may not always get 3 meals per day. She is a true missionary. She sacrifices for these children. We didn't choose India. GOD chose India for us. I believe that God put Sheba's story in our hands for a reason. It was that day that we began our true journey to finding our daughter. Almost a year later, I had the opportunity to meet her. I was talking to my friend Michele and she told me Sheba was coming back to the US and she knew who to contact to meet her. Michele knew how important it was to me to meet Sheba and to "thank" her for what she is doing. It wasn't until I sat down to talk to her that I found out that the children in her care will never be able to be adopted. (Sorry, but I cry every time I think about it.) Mostly because of the part of India that they are in. I believe that all children should have a story to tell and this is one that I will be proud to share with my daughter. I think we can all look to Sheba as an inspiration through our journeys. God Bless!
Thank you Sheba for opening our hearts to India!! You will always be a blessing to our family!!
To read her full story please visit Sheba's website. There is a link at the bottom of her page to see how a local church is helping her to purchase land to build an orphanage.
