Bergey Family - 8 kids and living in an RV

[Pseudoname]

After doing some sleuthing googling, I've been able to access the old blog archives from when they still lived in a house in 2012.

 Interestingly, in one post she talks about morning chores, the kids wear chore tags around their necks, and also links to the Large Families on Purpose blog about putting toddlers immediately into high chairs when they get up in the morning so they don't make messes. 

She also mentions, and has pictures of, the toddlers having blanket time every day.    And Johanna actually has laundry scheduled to do everyday while kids play or are doing schoolwork.

Like Erika, the kids play in different area, with Eliana playing on a tablet, while Johanna and the toddlers play in the girl's bedroom.

While she has scheduled school time for the older kids, Johanna does not appear to do any school work, she does laundry and takes care of the toddlers while Selina teaches the others.

pm me if you want links

[blessalessi]

I feel almost sure that the "young lady" they are seeking as a missionary aide will be Selina's new home help.

[iweartanktops]

After doing some sleuthing googling, I've been able to access the old blog archives from when they still lived in a house in 2012.

 Interestingly, in one post she talks about morning chores, the kids wear chore tags around their necks, and also links to the Large Families on Purpose blog about putting toddlers immediately into high chairs when they get up in the morning so they don't make messes. 

She also mentions, and has pictures of, the toddlers having blanket time every day.    And Johanna actually has laundry scheduled to do everyday while kids play or are doing schoolwork.

Like Erika, the kids play in different area, with Eliana playing on a tablet, while Johanna and the toddlers play in the girl's bedroom.

While she has scheduled school time for the older kids, Johanna does not appear to do any school work, she does laundry and takes care of the toddlers while Selina teaches the others.

pm me if you want links

I'm definitely going to pm you! 

This makes me so sad and angry! Putting small children in their high chairs, immediately, so they won't behave like children? Despicable. 

And why can't Ling have an education? I'm sure it's sub-par, but that's fucked up that she babysits while the rest of the kids are (presumably) learning! 

Ugh! 

[blessalessi]

Shit, well those archives are damning. I hope the Bergey Missionaries absolutely never make it to South Africa. They shouldn't be allowed within an ocean's distance of an orphanage.

[blessalessi]

@Pseudoname, thanks for the links.  I'm going to set out the circumstantial evidence here to see what others think, as it looks pretty strong to me. If the links are significant, I don't want Selina and Brent Bergey to have a chance to hide it from potential supporters of their littlefishministries "Orphan Ministry" to South Africa.

So, on 25 August 2012, Selina announced her pregnancy with baby Titus, by posing with Brent and holding a world globe in front of her belly.  The post said:

Announcing...

.....that there will soon be one (or two?) new little ones in our family!

On 31 August 2012, Selina announced the possibility of either another adoption or a move to the mission field in South Africa.

The Lord has put a burning passion in our hearts to minister to others through adoption. We have been praying since Alyssia came home last September for clarity and wisdom as to if and when we should adopt again.

We do not currently qualify for China's adoption program, although it is possible that we could have gotten a waiver. 

Both these are still viewable here:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://bergeybunch.blogspot.com/2012_08_01_archive.html

On 17 September Selina posted a long post about how challenging life had been for her family lately (though she doesn't like to complain!), in "God's Upside Down World".

God's Upside-Down Kingdom

Sometimes, life is hard and we feel like crying.

The past few months have been very challenging for our family.

And I have cried. And prayed. And not shared a word about it on my blog because I want this to be a haven. A refuge for weary moms. An encouraging word for adoptive families. Not a place where I complain.

But that's not really fair, is it? To only share the really-great-cute-as-a-button-perfect-family pictures and posts but leave out the so-exhausted-I-don't-know-if-I-can-get-up-tomorrow-and-do-this-again pictures and posts? 

I'm still torn---between baring my soul to the world and protecting my family's privacy delicately. 

But I did want to share this........maybe because I need the reminder right now more than anything.

In God's kingdom, everything is upside-down from what the world's kingdom offers.

In God's kingdom, the first will go last and the last will go first: I don't need to be the best or the first, or worry for a second what place anyone else holds. Being last is God's way.

In God's kingdom, to get you have to give: I can be "on empty" and still give one more time. It's not about what I can get out of it, it's about what I can give. God can give THROUGH me.

In God's kingdom, the servant is the leader. I can lead the best by serving--even if no one else notices. 

In God's kingdom, the road less traveled should be the highway for Christians. God is calling me to something greater than my dreams and plans---and harder, too. 

Sometimes we paint a rosy picture of Christianity and we fail to tell the world that true discipleship requires our ALL. 

God asks us to be willing to give up everything dear to us, to hold nothing back, to love and serve Him with abandon.

And that means that life will not always be easy. In fact, it might be extrememly lonely, full of heartache and trials, and quite opposite of what our ideal might look like. 

It could be that, like with Job, God has allowed some horrendous, mind-boggling painful trials to sweep down on your life like a whirlwind and you can't even catch your breath or take a second to process the loss.

Or it could be, like with Moses, God is allowing your character to be formed through a series of ups and downs, mountains and valleys, slavery and starvation in Egypt mixed with milk and honey in the Promised Land. 

Whatever your story is, remember this: GOD is the author. 

And in HIS kingdom, 

everything is upside-down.......

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://bergeybunch.blogspot.com/2012_09_01_archive.html

Meanwhile, that same weekend, over at fencingmama Kim's Mother and Daughters blog, it transpired that a little 11 year old girl's life actually had been turned upside down as she was brought from China by her new adoptive parent and abandoned to the care of Kim, who promptly started blogging about her faults and failings under her new pseudonym, Blossom.

http://fencingmama.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/baby-on-doorstep.html

Monday, September 17, 2012
Baby On the Doorstep

Have you ever imagined what you do if you walked out your front door and discovered a baby on the doorstep? Or, been walking through the woods and wondered what you'd do if you came upon a baby abandoned there? I think it's a common scenario that many woman entertain at some point in their lives. Even me.

Well, it sort of happened to me, but my "baby" is 11 years old and she's from China. She arrived on an airplane last Tuesday and life's been a whirlwind ever since.

There's something going on in the adoption community that isn't pleasant at all. It's one of the worse things that can happen to an adopting family and child. Disruption. This means that the adoption has failed and the family is giving the child up for readoption. In some cases, if the disruption took place in China, the child is returned to the orphanage. If the family is already home, the child may be placed into foster care or some other type of respite care, or, the child may be placed with another family right away. We all know what one desperate mother did, she put her son on the airplane back to his native country.

Now, this is a subject the demands respect and sensitivity by all. Please only comment on this post if you have something positive to ask or say.

My new daughter was adopted by a good family. They are kind and loving. Certain things occurred that lead to their painful decision to disrupt. They knew enough to know that they needed to bring her to the U.S. and not turn her back over to her orphanage, which would have been the end of any kind of future for her. This took guts! They do love her. Love, as we all know in the adoption community, is not enough. The Travel Family, as we will refer to them in our family, arrived in the U.S. on a Saturday and brought her to me the following Tuesday.

As with my Jie Jie and Sissy, her real name is being kept off the internet. Her psuedonym is Blossom.

On Blossom's first day home, she smiled and posed for pictures and seemed happy. After she realized what had just happened, that she was here to stay, she became sad, grieving for her life left behind, but hiding it behind a fantasy of love for the Travel Family. It's been a week now, but feels like one or two really long days, and she is talking non-stop of how, when she grows up, she's moving back to China or flying to the Travel Family's house to see them. Each day, she's tried harder and harder to isolate Sissy, because she can communicate with her, and reject me and Jie Jie. Today was the worse and tomorrow we begin a new strategy. Sissy knows she's being used and Jie Jie, thank heavens, is a bit clueless about it all.

The new strategy is that Blossom has to remain at my side all day long. She may not talk to Sissy or Jie Jie unless I am present. She can't make a move without my permission. This may seem harsh, but Blossom is at very high risk for non-attachment and Reactive Attachment Disorder. It is plain to see that she has never been loved. She doesn't know what love is. She doens't know what sorry is until the consequence of her actions is upon her and she's begging not to be held accountable with a thousand sorries.

She's small and cute, the most Chinese-looking of my girls. She is a real go-getter and do-it-yourselfer, to a fault. I am still getting to know her, but she can read at an appropriate level and has good comprehension, she can do simple addition and subtraction, and is picking up English faster than Sissy because she's such a go-getter and is still in survival mode.

In two days, she had the seatbelt in the car figured out. She now knows better how to aim while sitting on a Western toilet and how to truly use toilet paper. Yes, one must wipe where the pee comes from, not everywhere else! She has also learned that hand washing isn't getting the hands wet and shaking them off, but means using soap, scrubbing, rinsing and - the often left off step - drying them off. I bath her. She is terrible at it. And I brush her teeth. She's going to the dentist in two days, and she wants to since one of her teeth is really bothering her.

She has cried every day in grief, which is good, since it must come out.

She agrees to just about everything then does whatever she wants on her own, or at least tries to. "Okay, okay, okay," is her favorite phrase, but I think it really means, "Go away, I can handle this, even if I don't have a clue what's going on or what I'm doing."

Sissy tried to pull some pretend regression the first two days, but instead of regressing about meaningful things, she tried to moan and groan about wanting to use QQ, not about missing the people in China who she loves. She was obviously relieved that I stood my ground, feeling very secure that night as I tucked her in.

Jie Jie is doing well, but I'm keeping a very close eye on her in case she's pretending. She liked that Blossom played with her, at first, but now, for the first time today, Blossom showed signs of using Jie Jie as a target for plain meaness. Hence the new strategy starting tomorrow. I will not allow her to disrupt our happy household. She is welcome to join it, and we will all move a little this way and that to fit her right in, but she may not in any way destroy the bonds we have all forged.

Just like Sissy's rough start, this is all in the category of normal, but with the two major complications of not having been loved before and coming to me from another family. I am looking forward to the end of week three, when I hope Blossom has settled in and discovered that she likes it here and likes us.

As for practical and material considerations of a single mom with three kids, I know that when we do His work, He provides, and when I prayed for this child to be mine, I knew throughout my soul that this IS His work. That doesn't mean I can quit my job - too bad - but that my faith in Him is not in vein and I must just do as always, the best I can in all I do, especially my work, which is how I feed, house and clothe my children.

If you recognize Blossom from her Travel Family's blog, please respect our privacy, and their's, and don't name names. Be kind and realize that this has been the best outcome for a very difficult situation. Do not even begin to judge, because you can't and shouldn't, but please pray for all of us: for a family who lost a daughter right when they got her, and lost a 30 year old dream of having a daughter to love, for a mom with three girls, two who are only 2 months apart in coming home days, who is doing it all, and three little girls, each with special needs of some kind, but most of all, for Blossom, who is feeling so alone and lost and frightened.

 

The nearly finished room, my room with Blossom sharing at night. I need to hang the other plum curtains still. In the girls' room, all the toys are in the formal dining room now so that Blossom's dresser could fit. I'm thinking of moving the toy into the kitchen eating area and puttin the dining table in the formal dining room, but there's carpet in there and Blossom still drops a lot of food. 

Posted by K at 11:22 PM 
Labels: Blossom, disruption

20 comments:

 Cristy said...
Congratulations on your new daughter! How wonderful for you to be blessed with another little girl who needs the love and transformation that only a family can bring. Wishing strength for you all as you begin the rest of your lives together.
September 18, 2012 at 6:03 AM

 Jeanne said...
What an amazing story - sending prayers and blessings to you all.
September 18, 2012 at 6:10 AM
 

Keith said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
September 18, 2012 at 7:15 AM
 Keith said...
I am one who knows the deeper story. I am glad to have seen Blossom get a family who will be able to care for her. I'm very sorry it didn't work out with the Travel Family. I would have volunteered to have taken Blossom myself if I had the resources.

I know you prefer to disassociate from her old life while building new bonds, but I hope one day you will be willing to reach out to those Blossom once knew to rebuild old connections. If you ever do, I'll be able to help. I believe the Travel Family has already give you my contact information.

In any case, congratulations on your new arrival! You are in my thoughts and prayers.
September 18, 2012 at 7:17 AM

Commenter Keith apparently knew the story.  His blogger profile showed that he was a follower of two blogs: Mother and Daughters and Bergey Bunch. Boh Keith and Kim have commented on the Bergeybunch blog previously

Selina  was apparently at home with her children in the weeks before Blossom's adoption and abandonment.  This threw me off the scent until @pseudoname found the cached links which showed that it was Brent Bergey who had travelled alone to China for the family's previous adopted child.  Brent had not featured in the blog during the time Blossom was being "brought home" from China. 

Soon after, Selina posted a blog series congratulating herself on dealing with the good, bad and ugly aspects of adoption and the Bergeys subsequently announced they were no longer pursuing another adoption but would instead be heading off to Port Elizabeth in South Africa to start an Orphan Ministry.  They have since conducted two scoping trips to South Africa, each time leaving their adopted children behind.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://bergeybunch.blogspot.com/2012_12_01_archive.html

[nelliebelle1197]

After doing some sleuthing googling, I've been able to access the old blog archives from when they still lived in a house in 2012.

 Interestingly, in one post she talks about morning chores, the kids wear chore tags around their necks, and also links to the Large Families on Purpose blog about putting toddlers immediately into high chairs when they get up in the morning so they don't make messes. 

She also mentions, and has pictures of, the toddlers having blanket time every day.    And Johanna actually has laundry scheduled to do everyday while kids play or are doing schoolwork.

Like Erika, the kids play in different area, with Eliana playing on a tablet, while Johanna and the toddlers play in the girl's bedroom.

While she has scheduled school time for the older kids, Johanna does not appear to do any school work, she does laundry and takes care of the toddlers while Selina teaches the others.

pm me if you want links

Who are you, new poster and where have you been hiding? I love it when those highly skilled in GoogleTactics show up!

[ViolaSebastian]

[snip]

Soon after, Selina posted a blog series congratulating herself on dealing with the good, bad and ugly aspects of adoption and the Bergeys subsequently announced they were no longer pursuing another adoption but would instead be heading off to Port Elizabeth in South Africa to start an Orphan Ministry.  They have since conducted two scoping trips to South Africa, each time leaving their adopted children behind.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://bergeybunch.blogspot.com/2012_12_01_archive.html

Wow.  These two evil, evil families are connected.  Poor, poor Blossom.  I cannot imagine the hell she's endured and is still enduring.   

[blessalessi]

I'm no longer surprised that Selina was devastated to be found by freejinger/pseudoname. 

 

[pnwgypsy]

@Pseudoname, thanks for the links.  I'm going to set out the circumstantial evidence here to see what others think, as it looks pretty strong to me. If the links are significant, I don't want Selina and Brent Bergey to have a chance to hide it from potential supporters of their littlefishministries "Orphan Ministry" to South Africa.

So, on 25 August 2012, Selina announced her pregnancy with baby Titus, by posing with Brent and holding a world globe in front of her belly.  The post said:

On 31 August 2012, Selina announced the possibility of either another adoption or a move to the mission field in South Africa.

Both these are still viewable here:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://bergeybunch.blogspot.com/2012_08_01_archive.html

On 17 September Selina posted a long post about how challenging life had been for her family lately (though she doesn't like to complain!), in "God's Upside Down World".

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://bergeybunch.blogspot.com/2012_09_01_archive.html

Meanwhile, that same weekend, over at fencingmama Kim's Mother and Daughters blog, it transpired that a little 11 year old girl's life actually had been turned upside down as she was brought from China by her new adoptive parent and abandoned to the care of Kim, who promptly started blogging about her faults and failings under her new pseudonym, Blossom.

Commenter Keith apparently knew the story.  His blogger profile showed that he was a follower of two blogs: Mother and Daughters and Bergey Bunch. Boh Keith and Kim have commented on the Bergeybunch blog previously

Selina  was apparently at home with her children in the weeks before Blossom's adoption and abandonment.  This threw me off the scent until @pseudoname found the cached links which showed that it was Brent Bergey who had travelled alone to China for the family's previous adopted child.  Brent had not featured in the blog during the time Blossom was being "brought home" from China. 

Soon after, Selina posted a blog series congratulating herself on dealing with the good, bad and ugly aspects of adoption and the Bergeys subsequently announced they were no longer pursuing another adoption but would instead be heading off to Port Elizabeth in South Africa to start an Orphan Ministry.  They have since conducted two scoping trips to South Africa, each time leaving their adopted children behind.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://bergeybunch.blogspot.com/2012_12_01_archive.html

This is quite the body of work.  As if these 3 couldn't dig themselves a deeper hole...here it is.

[iheartchacos]

Did they adopt a black child at some point?

[Sylvan]

Commenter Keith apparently knew the story.  His blogger profile showed that he was a follower of two blogs: Mother and Daughters and Bergey Bunch. Boh Keith and Kim have commented on the Bergeybunch blog previously

Selina  was apparently at home with her children in the weeks before Blossom's adoption and abandonment.  This threw me off the scent until @pseudoname found the cached links which showed that it was Brent Bergey who had travelled alone to China for the family's previous adopted child.  Brent had not featured in the blog during the time Blossom was being "brought home" from China. 

Soon after, Selina posted a blog series congratulating herself on dealing with the good, bad and ugly aspects of adoption and the Bergeys subsequently announced they were no longer pursuing another adoption but would instead be heading off to Port Elizabeth in South Africa to start an Orphan Ministry.  They have since conducted two scoping trips to South Africa, each time leaving their adopted children behind.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://bergeybunch.blogspot.com/2012_12_01_archive.html

But didn't Brent travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo, not China? Selina wrote that they weren't elligible for another adoption from China, so they wanted to pursue an independent adoption in Congo instead. 

[EyeQueue]

If the Bergeys couldn't qualify for a Chinese adoption, dies this mean poor Blossom (if that is where she was disrupted from) has changed hands several times?  WTF!?

[pnwgypsy]

If the Bergeys couldn't qualify for a Chinese adoption, dies this mean poor Blossom (if that is where she was disrupted from) has changed hands several times?  WTF!?

I assume they no longer qualified for a Chinese adoption because they gave up Blossom.

[EyeQueue]

I assume they no longer qualified for a Chinese adoption because they gave up Blossom.

Ah, gotcha.  I wasn't clear on the chronology.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

God if you exist WHY do you let these cruel monsters deal with your most vulnerable children in this way ALL IN YOUR NAME? WTF? 

Seriously though,  I'm so tired of "called to it by god", "god put in our heart another adoption/pregnancy/SA orphanage" crap. And WTF god redeemed Johanna? You are the one who need redemption for how you deal with the children who have the misfortune to be in your care! And what was the problem with Blossom?  She didn't fit your scheme? Too old? No need for another laundry girl? Did she have real special needs? How did you manage to find for her a psycho maybe worse than you? 

[Pseudoname]

 

Ok, I'm going to be a voice of reason here, with a PSA

Before we fully condemn either Selina's Bergey, or Kim Fencingmama, please remember that we do not have actual proof of a connection between Selina and Blossom.  All we have is conjecture, and some fairly convincing, yet circumstantial evidence.  

We'll keep digging though. 

[blessalessi]

But didn't Brent travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo, not China? Selina wrote that they weren't elligible for another adoption from China, so they wanted to pursue an independent adoption in Congo instead. 

I don't know what happened wrt Congo.  And as Pseudoname says, this is all circumstantial.  But Selina specifically wrote that they may have a waiver for China.

They certainly had concurrent plans for a Congo adoption, which 10 year old Ellie wrote about in a "guest post". 

It must be terrifying to be a child in a family where adopted children are planned for, then disappear into the ether when the plans don't work out.

 

[Iamhispurity]

I really think I should take researching courses from y´all. How do you find all that?

[blessalessi]

I am going to keep repeating that it is circumstantial.  And I will say that there is no indication on the blog as to what went on in the family, leading up to the suspected disruption.  Something sad or traumatic might have happened, who knows?

My issue is not that Selina is a bad person for having difficult things happen in her life.  But she doesn't seem to consider the impact on the children of all of these plans to save the world. The children seem to be accessories to validate her choices.  And it is disingenuous and hypocritical to scrub her blog when she is challenged, but to keep on putting herself out there as a mentor to other women.

@Iamhispurity, I didn't find this on Selina's own blog originally and found the connection by accident, when I was randomly following threads on FJ.  Over on the thread about Kimmie the fencingmama, we were discussing Blossom's sudden arrival via "disruption", and I clicked through the blogger profiles of the commenters on that post, to see who was in her circle of friends.  Keith, the only commenter who said he was aware of the situation had just those two blogs he was following, listed in his profile. Given that the Bergeys live in an RV, the reference to them as "The Travel Family" seemed to me to be more than a coincidence.   Then Pseudoname independently discovered a way of reading the cached blog posts that Selina Bergey scrubbed last week.

 

 

If the Bergeys couldn't qualify for a Chinese adoption, dies this mean poor Blossom (if that is where she was disrupted from) has changed hands several times?  WTF!?

I read that part to be saying that they don't qualify under the standard rules, but they might be eligible for a waiver (for the child that is suspected to be Blossom).

I'm guessing that finances might have been the issue.  China requires an income of £10k per head, but there are waivers if family can prove they have a comparable standard of living for their own location.  I'm not sure how "living in a bus" figures into that, but....

[Paperplate]

Did they adopt a black child at some point?

Them having the photo of a black girl in their blog header makes one think that she is one of their family (since the rest are actual family pics), but it seems that black girl symbolises the African orphans they want to "save".

[Pseudoname]

At the time of Blossom's adoption, the Bergeys were still living in a house, and at that point hadn't started their ministry, and definitely not travelling around in an RV.  

 So I think it is purely coincidental that Kim Fencingmama called Blossom's first family Travel Family.  I think she may have meant it in terms that being the family that travelled to China to not adopte her, then Blossom travelled with that family back to the USA hoping she'd be re-adopted by another family.

However mistaken I may have first been about immediately thinking Bergey Family as Travel Family, there are still those other bits and pieces that could link them together.

There could be many other reason for the Bergeys being refused to adopt from China, such as finances, Selina's pregnancy, or, just maybe, a recent adoption finalised, but then refused by the Bergeys.  We may never know.  There are so damn many blogs and articles online about Chinese adoptions, many linking each other on their side bars that it is difficult to navigate it all to find any relevant tidbits of info.

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Is there a way to see Keith's comments on Selina's blog?

[blessalessi]

 

@laPapessaGiovanna when I search bergeybunch and keith in google, lots of links come up with text that can be read in part, even though the links are dead.

  I have found some more weird stuff about Selina and the Congo adoption plans and I don't know what to make of it.

[blessalessi]

Selina seems to have decided on the Congo adoption after emailing with this blogger, Angie, in May 2012 (see comments) http://itsamomlife.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/its-moving-along.html

On 25 August, at 9.10am this same blogger announces that she is pregnant and that she will concurrently be going ahead with the Congo adoption.http://itsamomlife.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/its-moving-along.html

The same day, 25 August,  at 7.30pm Selina announces that she and Brent are pregnant, planning a concurrent adoption in the Congo, (and may still have a waiver for a China adoption).http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://bergeybunch.blogspot.com/2012_08_01_archive.html

On 29th August, Selina comments on Angie's blog, without mentioning her own news.

SelinaAugust 29, 2012 at 11:43 AM
Angie!! How exciting! I haven't had the "nerve" to ask Paul [Director of the Congo Orphanage] what would happen if we conceived while our adoption was in process (we began our HS this week!)....I guess C4C is okay with the pregnancy then? Praise the Lord! My children are currently 15, 10, 7, 5, 3, 2 and 2...and we are looking to adopt an infant boy or a sibling/twin set...all that to say that, YES, you can do so much more than you might think you can do! We went from four to seven children in 9 months....and are hoping to add more! Cannot WAIT til you have your referral!

There seems to have been a very disturbing baby-grabbing frenzy going on, with no regard to reason or regulations. 

In the event, the pregnancy that Selina announced in August was not for Titus.  He wasn't born until August 2014.  

I don't know whether it is just coincidence that Selina's other posts seemed to point to the Bergey's as being the "Travel Family" that disrupted Blossom's adoption, but this was a frenetic baby-grabbing time.

Althought they were in a house, not an RV, travel was a big part of their lives.  Eliana later made a guest post that bragged: "I’ve been to the following places in 13 years: Mexico, China, Hong Kong, Belize, South Africa, Honduras, U.S Virgin Islands, and from California to Virginia (with lots of states in between)."

[accountingstar]

Didn't Oprah Winfrey open a school in SA? Didn't it, even with her support and funding, go under? (Do I remember that correctly?) How do these people think they can open an orphanage, having collected dribs and drabs of money here and there? It'll probably only fund their airfare!

Oprah's school is still open. She recently treated 20 students to the Broadway show The Color Purple.

From the article: "The $40 million girls' school in South Africa opened its doors in January 2007 to 152 students handpicked by the media mogul. The Academy was built from a promise she made to former President Nelson Mandela to give students a better future."

Here's a link to the article:

http://www.people.com/article/oprah-winfrey-color-purple-broadway-leadership-students?xid=rss-topheadlines

Link to the School's website: http://www.owla.co.za/

Here's a link to an interesting article called Do I need Training to Start an Orphanage?: http://www.orphancaremovement.org/do-i-need-training-to-start-an-orphanage/

Highlight of the article: "We will be sharing examples of cases where some of our well meaning (smart) staff have unintentionally caused irreparable harm to orphans because of their lack of training."

Who wants to bet that this family is not going to get any training before heading over to South Africa.

Also, this family has no clue how expensive it is to run an children's home aka orphanage. This one children's home in South Africa needs $2,954,293 a year to run the home for 250 children between 18 months and 18 years. That is a lot of money per year. The family would never be able to raise that amount of money each year. They would be better off trying to get in with an established organization. Fundie families have big dreams, but not the funds to fund them.

Link to article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/jakaranda-childrens-home-loses-funding_n_2258871.html