The post where I offend half the people I know

Growing up, I heard about a group of children called orphans. These children lived without parents, presumably in orphanages with other children where they played and went to school, and seemed to enjoy life just the same an any other kid, except without a family. Now, I have great parents and a fun sister, so I don't know why it didn't seem like a horrible thing that these children didn't have parents. We would occasionally take up offerings at church for the orphans, but I had no personal experience with really understanding anything about orphans.

Fast forward twenty-some years, and I'm a thirty-three year old adult, married with three kids. My youngest is four months old, and a couple stands up in the front of the church to tell us about the orphan crisis in the world. Orphan crisis? Who ever heard of such a thing? By the end of the service, all I can do is stare at the four month old on my lap and weep for children around the world who will never know the touch of a mom, when that is all he has ever know.

I'm a numbers person. Numbers speak to me, and so after that Sunday, I started doing a little digging, and what I found was appalling. Around the world, there are approximately 150,000,000 orphans, which does not even include the children who are sold and trafficked. Just to compare, the total population of the United States is somewhere around 300,000,000. Some of these children have lost one parent, others have lost both parents. An even larger group are called "social orphans," meaning they have been abandoned, given up, or their parents are no longer able to care for them.

 Each year, more than 14,000,000 children age out of their country's institutional care, where 60% of the girls will become prostitutes and 70% of the boys will become criminals. In the U.S. alone, more than 400,000 children live without permanent families. One third of those children are available for adoption. Around 27,000 children will age out of U.S. foster care this year.

A little over a year after sitting in that church service, I took a class based upon Kevin DeYoung's book Just Do Something. The book's description reads as such,

Pastor and bestselling author Kevin DeYoung counsels Christians to settle down, make choices, and do the hard work of seeing those choices through. Too often, he writes, God's people tinker around with churches, jobs, and relationships, worrying that they haven't found God's perfect will for their lives. Or-even worse-they do absolutely nothing, stuck in a frustrated state of paralyzed indecision, waiting... waiting... waiting for clear, direct, unmistakable direction.
But God doesn't need to tell us what to do at each fork in the road. He's already revealed His plan for our lives: to love Him with our whole hearts, to obey His Word, and after that, to do what we like.
No need for hocus-pocus. No reason to be directionally challenged. Just do something.

This book combined with the above statistics caused me to look around at my comfortable, steady, suburban life and realize that we are meant to do something more. Something more than go to church on Sunday, pray with my family, read my Bible, a live a safe life without stepping out of the box. We were made to do something.

I was further challenged when I was conversing with two other ladies about adoption. One just couldn't fathom bringing a stranger into her home to live with her other children. And the cost? Well, that meant that they would possibly have to go into debt or take away from their other children. Once she was done, all I could say is, "For the price of your car, a child be brought out of poverty and given a family forever." The conversation ended there, but the spark was lit.

Over the past few years, evangelical churches have started using terms like "orphan care" and "Orphan Sunday" and "orphan crisis." In some cases, they're almost becoming cliché,  a term used to describe how their church or small group can financially contribute to larger groups who sponsor orphanages, send gifts, or even offer grants to other people who wish to adopt. Other churches have taken it on as a challenge, a mission. They are actively sponsoring individual orphans, orphanages, supporting families within their own churches who are adopting, and encouraging orphan care on a local and international level.

Here are some more ugly truths. Many children all over the world are given up because they are born with a disability. This is the truth for our own Baby O. I'm not going to share all of the private details of his story because they're just that - his story. However, Baby O does still have living birth parents who are unable to care for him because in his country, children with Down Syndrome are given up because they have 47 chromosomes instead of the usual 46. In his country, it is unacceptable. There are no schools and no jobs for anyone with a disability. Children are placed in institutional care as soon as they are diagnosed. Baby O has been in an orphanage for younger children, called a baby house, since his release from the hospital.

If for any reason, the word "orphanage" brings to mind images from movies or television, erase that thought from your mind. Some are good, some are not so good, some are downright awful. None are a substitute for a loving family. None. In O's case, his orphanage had some redeeming qualities, however, it is painfully obvious that O has spent most of his three years of life laying in a crib. Laying. In a crib. All day. He weighs sixteen pounds at three years old (just to compare, the Little Guy weighed 35 pounds at three years old). His only teeth are molars in the back of his mouth. We don't know if his front teeth have just rotted out or if they haven't come in because of the lack of nutrition. He doesn't crawl, stand, or talk. Granted, he has had a few health challenges along the way as well. However, when we asked the orphanage staff about his limited abilities, the answer was always, "Because of the Down Syndrome."

This is where it gets tougher. Baby O ages out of his baby house at the ripe old age of four. I have a four year old here at home. Four year olds are still babies. At the age of four, O would be transferred to a mental institution. An mental institution that includes adults.

This is Kyle.

 



 Kyle lived in a baby house in Russia. He was placed for adoption.

This is Kyle after he aged out of his baby house and was placed in a mental institution.

 Kyle had a family who was coming for him, but the Russian ban on American adoptions prevented them from rescuing him. Instead, a plea was put out, asking another family from another country to please step up and take him in their home. Kyle never made it. Earlier this summer, Kyle died in the mental institution.

I wish I could say that Kyle was an isolated case, but he's not. Everyday, children with disabilities are transferred from a baby house to a mental institution because no one has come for them. It is estimated that up to EIGHTY PERCENT of the children who are transferred to mental institutions do not survive their first year. How do we not weep every day with that knowledge?

This sweet face? We're racing to him. We're running as fast as we possibly can.

 

In May, Baby O will be four years old. He will never have to see the inside of a mental institution. Instead, God-willing, he will be surrounded by his brothers and sister, celebrating a life changed forever. I am so grateful, because I know he would never survive the institution.

 

So, this brings me back. What are we going to do about the millions of children who face each and every day without a parent? What about the children here in the U.S. in foster care? What about the ones overseas? What about the children who can never be adopted because of political barriers?

 

When, CHURCH? When, suburbanites? When, friends? When are we going to just do something?