Blogging Again

I have followed Reece's Rainbow for 13 years now. I started following RR when I was working in South Korea as an English teacher. While I was living in Korea, I became involved with Animal Rescue Korea (ARK), an organization made up chiefly of foreign teachers like myself that rescued cats and dogs from Korean shelters and worked to rehome them. I took in various pets, some with special needs. I still have two old dogs I rescued from Korea, Jack and Benji. I lost my last two Korean cats in 2021 when Suzy was euthanized because of cancer and her sister Jasmine died 7 weeks later. Unfortunately, my mother died 8 days before Jasmine passed away. When I was in Korea, I was thinking about how much I wanted to save animals, yet I then thought to myself "How about saving children?" Myself, along with the other ARK members, would often try to get pets out of the shelters before their time was up. We would sometimes have a Korean veterinarian call the shelter to find out about an animal, only to find out they had already been euthanized. I still think of some animals I saw on the website and wished I had been able to save them. There were some animals that were too sick to save. Some were taken out of the shelter, only to soon die because they needed medical help sooner. Unfortunately, Parvo Virus was also very common in the shelters, as there was a lot of mismanagement in them. I had some cats die soon after I rescued them, and I hate to think about those situations more than a decade later. It was then that I began to think about rescuing human orphans. What could I do to help children in need? I searched "special needs adoption" and I found Rainbowkids.com. They are an international adoption resource site. I looked at their adoption programs. I knew I could not adopt a Korean orphan because Korea only allows married couples to adopt. I looked at photos of children on Reece's Rainbow and Rainbowkids. There were some children I wished I could bring home. I even contacted someone from Children's House International because I wanted to learn more about two girls with cystic fibrosis. One was 6 years old, the other a little younger. I still remember those precious photos and short video of a nun interacting with one of the children in an orphanage. I was happy to find out that the older girl was adopted by her Polish foster family and the younger girl was adopted by a family in Pennsylvania. I had the paperwork from Children's House International at home. I knew I could not adopt anytime soon. I was told I would have to show them a family photo (I only had myself) and photographs of my house (I was living in a tiny hovel of an apartment in Gangnam). I would have to find a husband and get a nicer home together. I also needed a better job. Well, I have advocated hard to get some kids adopted. It did work. I know of at least three children who were adopted because of my efforts to advocate for them. Yet, the blogging culture that existed a decade ago just isn't here anymore. I do wonder what to do next. https://adeyesalem.com/i-left-my-heart-there/