The Boy from Baby House 10

If you haven't read this book, I highly suggest it. Dean and I both read it. Tomorrow night on Dateline "The Boy" is going back. Back to where he came from, for the first time. Check out the trailer.

We're still here!

Did you really think I'd have any exciting news to share? No, we're here. Sitting in a hotel room, counting our blessings. We *could* be trapped in an airport. We *could* be without internet (shudder!) We could be in a lot worse situation than we are. But, even though things are good at the moment, they can change quickly. Most people traveling for humanitarian purposes don't budget for a lot of extra money "just in case". Besides, who prays that no volcanos will erupt while on a trip?

We'll be on the news tonight. Shelley was interviewed by phone by CNN a little while ago, and it will air on CNN international. I was interviewed via Skype by KSTP Channel 5 in Minneapolis, and it will air on the 6:00 news.

To all our friends and family, I'm sorry that you'll be hearing news for the first time...on the news...about a decision Dean and I have made. We love you, we just had planned on talking about this more when I got home. But here I am in Bulgaria, and "M's" time is running out. So, there ya go! Between getting stuck here in Bulgaria, and funding the adoption of M, things will be financially interesting. But we'll get her home. If you're new to the blog, you can find out more about "M" here. (scroll down once you get there, you'll find what I'm talking about.) She's amazing, and she needs to get out of Serbia SOON! Also, please visit the CTR blog to find out why I'm here in the first place!

It was suggested to put a donation button up on the blog. I'll will be having to purchase new tickets from Germany...eventually...hopefully sooner than later! If you're interested in helping me get home, the button is on the right sidebar. I feel really weird mentioning that, but I guess I'll have to get over it. Thank you so very much for helping me get home.

Gotcha day

Yesterday I had to the honor of playing photographer for one of the best births ever! The birth of a child who was once an orphan into his forever family. Go read Shelley's blog for your daily dose of God. (and to see the grin that woke me up at 2:00 a.m.! LOL)

Wide awake: 2:00 a.m.

Tonight (this morning?) I'm wide awake. I'm sure the caffeine I had at 11:00 p.m didn't help much. Since I've been up until 2-3:00 a.m every night, I'm kind of hoping it won't be too difficult to get back on U.S. time when I get home, especially considering I have finals the following day! Speaking of which, if you could please say a prayer for me, I'm really struggling with math right now. I'm having to teach myself the last 2 chapters, and that's what my final exam will be on when I return. My professor volunteered to send me the answer key for those two chapters, yet after emailing him 3 times over the last week I still haven't received anything. That means I can't work backward to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I know he's busy, and he it's not his fault I'm missing 2 weeks of class. I'll just have to figure it out for myself.

Ok...done whining....

The other reason I'm awake is because of the things I wasn't allowed to take pictures of, yet the images are burned in my mind forever. It's like a scar that will never heal, no matter what I do to try healing it. I guess that's what God does when he wants you to do something. He starts a fire to scar your heart so that you'll pay attention to it, never forget it, and keep working to care for it. I'm sure those who are working in Haiti understand what I'm trying to explain, and those who've seen inside the orphanages here in Eastern Europe understand it too.

It is impossible to come to a place like this, and leave the same person you were before. I've known for a long time I needed to come here and see for myself, because I didn't feel I could adequately advocate for these children and families without doing so. Now I have seen, and now I have to do something. There are children who will be dead in a matter of months. There are others who will be subjected to far worse horrors than they've already experienced if they're not adopted soon. How can I walk away knowing that? How can I hold a child in my arms, feel him sink into me, his spirit soaking up the love from my heart like a dry sponge dropped into a sink full of water. It was all I could do to put him down, when what I really wanted to do was run with him, knowing that he's going to die very soon because nobody will save him. It's not because he's sick, it's because nobody wants him. How can that be? How can ANYONE live with that knowledge and not DO something? How can I hold a child, watch her desperate attempts to prove she is worthy of being loved, then just turn my back and pretend I'd never seen her, only to wake up every morning knowing today could be the day she is moved to hell itself?

This is too much knowledge for me. This is more than I wanted to know. Why couldn't I stand back for once, and let someone else get involved? Let someone else fix the problems in a country 1/2 way around the world? Because, God CHOSE me. HE put me here. He put ME....here....HERE!!! Do you know ME? Those who do are wondering what in the world *I* am doing here. HE took a branding iron that is his call, and pressed it against my heart, searing it...scarring it...making it permanent. The very part of me that makes me who I am....my heart...has been branded by the call of God to do THIS.

Wow...that's a lot to think about. I wonder if I am worthy of this job?

Imagine a different life (repost)

I originally wrote this post a couple of years ago, but feel it's very timely to repost it again, since I'm now sitting in a hotel room in Bulgaria.

Last week I experienced something most never hope to witness in their entire lives-the inside of an orphanage in Eastern Europe. Tomorrow I'll be at another in Bulgaria. The institutions I am visiting are considered "good ones", but still, there are plenty of images I wish were not etched into my memory. Of children bound to their cribs, force feedings, severe isolation. I'd hoped I could come here and tell you the reports I'd read were wild exaggerations, and that Ann Curry's report was sensationalized reporting meant to draw an audience.

I was wrong. They are right. If you haven't read this post before, please do. If you've already read it, please pass it along, then be sure to read my other posts from this week. Please don't turn away because you don't want your heart to hurt. The only way to stop this madness is for more hearts to know the truth.

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Imagine you're a newborn baby. Born in a land far different than where you are now. A place where the value of human life is much different than it is in developed countries. Now imagine that you were born with something like Down Syndrome, or something as minor as a hand deformity.

Your parents will be told to send you away, that there is no care for you, and you're going to die anyway. So your parents follow the advice of doctors and bring you to an orphanage. But remember, this is an orphanage in a 3rd world country. You spend your days, weeks, months and years cold, hungry, and without medical care. If you're lucky, there will be one caregiver who takes a liking to you and tries to give you some extra attention each day.

But there's something looming over you. Something that most children in the world celebrate...your 4th birthday. Only for you, this birthday brings a death sentence, because in many of these countries, if you turn 4 and have not been adopted you'll be moved to a mental institution where you are no longer available for adoption. For all intense purposes, to the rest of the world you are dead.

There you well spend your days like this


You will be straight jacketed in sheets. Why? Because of the intense boredom and lack of human physical contact you will resort to desperate measures, even if it means gouging your own eyes out. The only contact you will get with people is if you're lucky, someone will notice that your sheets are full of urine and feces and decide to change them. You will never see sunshine. You will never smell fresh air, only the overpowering odor of urine and feces from several hundred children just like you crammed into the same building getting the same lack of care. You will likely die within the first couple of years from some terrible illness, severe dehydration, or hypothermia from lack of heat in the decrepit building.

Or perhaps you would be like this little girl. Bound by her wrists for years already, left alone in a state of severe dehydration. TIED TO HER BED!!!!!



If you don't die within the first couple of years, your body might continue to grow. But don't think it will get you a bigger bed. Instead you'll be forced to spend more years in the same crib, just like these TEENAGERS have been crammed in.


But it doesn't have to be this way! It doesn't! While governments and organizations like Mental Disability Rights International will have to deal with the indidual countries, there are ways to save these children! Reece's Rainbow is an adoption organization dedicated to rescuing children with Down Syndrome from certain death in these countries. There are many children who are approaching their 4th birthday. While not everyone is in a position to adopt a child, Reece's Rainbow has established a fund for each child to help with the adoption expenses so that nobody can say, "I would do it if I had the money."

Even if you can't adopt a child, can you spare $5, $10 or more so that someone else can? Please...this makes me sick to know these children are dying. Read through the child profiles. You'll find children that have nothing wrong with them other than an eye that needs surery, or a hand that has a mild deformity, yet they have been thrown away. But we can save them!!!!

Satisfying needs

I don't want to sugar coat the images from my trip, but I also want to speak respectfully of those who were gracious enough to allow us to see the reality behind the doors of the institution we visited. If families who have to potential to adopt don't know the reality, they will continue to look the other direction. It's easy to choose to NOT see the truth. Can YOU read this post without looking away? Without turning it off and leaving it for the next person to worry about? This is my challenge to you, to read the entire post, which includes watching the video.

Please watch this interview, then read the rest of the blog.

"M", who I talked about in a previous post, came from this very institution visited by Ann Curry. In fact, "M" spent he first eight years there! But the director of the orphanage saw the news story and was determined to save some of the kids, so she requested some of them be transferred to her care. "M" was lucky enough to be one of those children.

Usually this orphanage can't have children over the age of 7. By that time they're transferred to the mental institutions (similar to where M had just come from). But since many of the children came into her care, they now have several that are nearing 10 years old. That's the age limit...10 years old. "M" is 10 years old.

So what happens next? "M" will be transferred to an institution for "older" children, those considered un-adoptable. Because she is unable to speak, and she is the size of a 4 or 5 year old, she will be incredibly vulnerable to all the horrible things you can possibly imagine a little girl in her position could be subjected to. It won't be long before her spirit dies, and eventually she will loose the will to live. How can I...how can you...sit back and know this will happen? I can't, can you?

What about the others?

There are many children in the orphanages who will never be adopted, either because nobody wants them, or because they have been deemed "unadoptable".

When I met "M" (pictured below in my previous post) and after spending some time with her, I made the comment, "She has so much potential! She will take off if only she is given the chance at a family." The staff looked at me as if I had just grown 3 heads right before their eyes.

You see, in their culture, "having potential" doesn't have the same meaning it does to me. To them, it means being able to have a college education, or at a minimum go to a regular school. To me it means the child has the DESIRE and ABILITY to communicate, and I can see how quickly he or she attempts to interract with me. For M, it took less than 5 minutes to teach her three signs. "Me", "More", and "camera".

There comes a point when someone has to decide which children's names will be placed on the list that says they are free for adoption. "M", wasn't one of those children. When we asked why, we were told, "Who would want her? There are so few families, we save the spots for those who are more likely to find a family."

Later, a staff person asked me to explain to her what I meant when I said a child had potential, because clearly "smart" to me had a different meaning than it did to the people of their country. You have to understand, this person has a heart for these children. She will FOREVER be a friend to me. She is working against a society who doesn't understand WHY in the world we would want these children. Is it any wonder their biological parents don't want to take them home when they will only be stared at by strangers, and ridiculed by their friends?

I explained that there is a family for EVERY SINGLE CHILD THERE, no matter how severely delayed they are, even if they are nothing more than breathing lumps of skin and bones taking up space. To be honest, after years of institutional life, there are many children who would fit just this description. But somewhere, deep inside them, is a spirit, and a spirit doesn't need a whole, fully functioning physical body to live! So yes, there is a family for every child, but those families will never know their child is out there...waiting...unless they are made available for adoption and we can talk about them! Without exposure to the world of parents who are searching for THEIR child, these children will die a miserable death. Just last week, two children died in this facility...and they died alone.

I pray that we convinced her to get every child on that list that they can. While it seems an impossible goal to find a home for every child, God has no limits! HE knows where every child belongs, weather it be in his arms or in the arms of earthly parents.

Here is a child who is considered "unadoptable".

Do you see how big my hand is on his chest? Guess his age. No, you're not even close, guess again. He is 21 months old, and he is the size of the average American 4 month old. This lack of growth doesn't have anything to do with his heart condition, but rather his life in an institution with a clack of physical stimulation. He has Down syndrome, and a severe heart defect....and he is blind. He was afraid of me when I first touched him. A voice speaking sounds he doesn't understand, a hand he couldn't touch because he had socks over them to stop him from chewing on them. And yet, it only took a few minutes of stroking his face, and talking to him softly, telling how much God loves him, before I got this

Giggles that came all the way from his toes!!!! And with that giggle the tears came streaming down my cheeks, because the reality was just too much for me to comprehend.

This boy spends his days in a crib, either sitting in an infant seat on the floor (or sometimes it's sitting in the crib) or just laying in his bed, waiting for the next time a caregiver has a moment to come check on him. If he's lucky, they'll have time to hold him. He has a roommate who will be going home to his forever family soon. A little boy with no arms and legs, but is cognitively normal. His other roommate cries all the time, but her cries are not always answered. Even so, she'll go home to a family before too long. But this boy? No. Not him. He will spend his days isolated in the darkness of blindness, listening to the sounds of the world go by in the hallway, all the while waiting.........just waiting.......and eventually his waiting will end and he'll find himself in the arms of a father who loves him more than any of us ever could.

Random thoughts from the past week

I know my blog has been seriously neglected this past week. I have A LOT to say, believe me, but some of it has to wait for a few days. Partly so that I can write about it without sobbing a huge puddle of tears, and partly because it just has to be that way for reasons I can't explain right now.

Yes, we have posted many pictures of smiling, happy children on the CTR blog. And for every smiling child we posted, there are two or three who are not. There are 200+ orphans in the facility we visited, but we only met about 50. The rest were at various preschools or special needs kindergartens. That's a good thing...I think, that they are out and about. I'll just say there are still plenty of mysteries, and I'll leave it at that.

But, in all of those faces, there is one little girl...

This child..."M"..crawled right into my lap, and my heart. She has Apert syndrome, and is typical with children who have A.S. her fingers are fused. She has had one surgery to release one finger, but will need several more. She let us take a picture of her hands.

She is only talking a small amount, but nobody is really sure why. But it is NOT for lack of WANTING to communicate! "M" is amazing at getting her point across! And she understands EVERYTHING that is said to her, following directions and trying her best to fit in. Here, she listens carefully as her caregivers tell her what I'm saying, "You're so beautiful!"

She then, very carefully, used the ends of her fused hands to tuck her short hair behind her ears, and gave me this very self-satisified grin.

You can't tell in these pictures, but at 10 years old, "M" is the size of your average 4 or 5 year old. This is not typical of Apert syndrome, but IS typical of a child living in an institutional setting and suffering the effects of social neglect. The caregivers in this facility try their best. But M is in a situation where there is one caregiver for every 12-15 children. When she goes to bed at night, there is nobody to tuck her in. I think of Angela, and how every night there is someone to read her a chapter of her latest favorite book, (about crocodiles!) or to sing her favorite song, (Somewhere Over the Rainbow). "M" doesn't have that. She puts herself to bed, covers herself up, and probably helps the little boy who sleeps less than a foot away in his own bed. Does she wonder, when she goes to sleep at night, if her mom or dad are going to come for her one day? I wonder if anyone has EVER sung to her at night as she drifted off to sleep?

Her smile- and her sweet spirit- have haunted my dreams every night since.