The Beautiful, yet abandoned Children of Romania: A sewer becomes a cathedral of worship

Our second visit to Romania.
This time I am pregnant with my fourth child
         Zachary is tucked safely away in my womb.
This time we are invited into a sewer
 
First the man-hole cover is lifted off
        revealing a gaping hole that leads to the unused sewer system of Bucharest
   
Then, one by one we follow them in
      Turning around and carefully crawling down the rusty old ladder
         
It hits our noses before we even enter
The fumes of the underbelly of this tired city
        stagnant and toxic
This little corner of the world houses children. Dear God!

At this point I'm very aware of the baby in my womb, of my new baby boy.
At the end of my first trimester, I situate myself as near as possible to the "door" that leads up to the bustling street above. Children should be protected and cared for.

Climbing into this home I see two of the them. Teenagers. Kids. They seem to have nothing but a few found trinkets and each other. Nestled together down the tunnel, tucked away in the dark. Far from the blast of cold December air that fills the night,
      staying close to keep warm.
      snuffing a bag of glue 

Then it starts.
The singing.
It was time for church
In the beautiful Romanian language
        I couldn't sing the words, but oh my soul knew.
Our translator told us, they're singing to a God who loves them….

None of this makes sense on the surface

We could argue and debate about God 

and the injustices of the world

Of which there are so many

So much wrong and broken

But these are the facts of that night.
This is the truth of their story.
We encountered Jesus in the sewers of Romania.

Yes - they were abandoned by parents, 

by a government, by a hurting society.

They were orphaned and alone.

But someone came and shared food and shoes;

gave the Abandoned Ones love, attention, dignity.

A simple sandwich. A clean pair of socks.

Someone came and told them Jesus loved them.

And they believed.
In the darkest of circumstances they chose to believe in a Savior
Because Jesus came to where they were.
Because when Light is turned on in darkness, Light makes sense

That's it about God
Not waiting for us to get it together.
He comes to us, to them.

When Jesus shows up in those darkest of places...
   transformation happens 
   a sewer becomes a cathedral of worship

The Beautiful...yet abandoned Children of Romania...Part 2

Babies, mattresses, wet diapers and sorrow

See Children of Romania...Part 1

It was the early 90's and my husband and I had traveled to Romania. We showed up one morning at an orphanage in the city of Bucharest.
Sadly, Romania is infamous for its orphanages and its orphaned children
There is history there
    there was a dictator who brutalized the country
      which led to a persecuted people and a broken society
Ultimately leading to abandoned children and babies…. many babies and many orphanages

We walked in that day to a very sterile environment.
How do you prepare for this? You don't. You walk in.
No noise or beautiful chaos like you might assume any house full of children to be
     Instead, picture an orphanage straight out of a Dicken's novel
           that's more like it
And then, if it's even possible, oh so much more sad

Cribs lining the wall
Beautiful, over-worked, overwhelmed Romanian women caring for these little ones
Eerily quiet, not because there were not babies in the cribs.
No ma'am
Those cribs were full,
     but the air was empty
So little sound, void of baby chatter
Not even a healthy cry for attention
A few slight whimpers of surrender
The creaking of a crib that is moving … moving as they rock … themselves. That universal sign of mental and emotional depravity. Learned at an impossibly young age. When others have abandoned their job to care for another, the abandoned one learns to self-soothe.

Walking through this nursery, big eyes just looked out at us. Looking like little birds that were trapped, really. Not even hopeful. What child in my world doesn't assume they will be picked up, cuddled, kissed or cared for? These ones evidently couldn't even grasp it. Because then it happened. I watched my husband Norb reach out to touch one little baby boy, because isn't that what you do?
         you reach
         you touch
         you hug
Babies need that. WE need that. In order to survive.
The only problem is when humans are not touched enough.
That sweet baby boy. He cringed. He pulled away... shaking.
Slowly, after some patience and persistence, he allowed a soothing hand to rub his back. To touch his little body.
How many were in their beds, rocking back and forth? No one there to soothe so they must soothe themselves...

Along the corridor we walked, on in to the toddler area.
Cloth diapers only got changed at assigned times each day because there weren't enough diapers, or enough hands to do the changing.
Bottle time - same amount for every child no matter the size, and definitely no more.

There behind a wall of windows was a mattress-covered floor.
The pre-walking, toddling babies in just a cloth diaper, holding a bottle, gripping it in order to get the last drop. I don't remember how many were lying on those uncovered, soiled mattresses. Definitely more than a dozen... 20? I don't remember. I do remember the smell, and the sight, because when there are babies and diapers there is always soiling and mess.  When there aren't resources or money or people to do the work, the mess stays that way.

It didn't take long for Norb to open that door to the mattress room. Down on all fours he just lay there while this "litter" of little ones crawled over him -vying for his attention. Smiles on their faces. Touching his face. Being loved with a touch and a hug and smile...while he wept
Norb wept with these little ones, for these little ones.
It was beautiful,
It was terrible
It was horrendous
and it was truly a holy moment.

I'm writing this down and I'm just not sure why I'm telling you this.
It's not like we did anything about it.
There I said it.
We cried, we mourned, we wept for the abandoned and the neglected, but at that moment, we did nothing more.
I'm sitting here crying again, mourning once more. Willing that our time spent, prayers said, touch and smile impacted little hearts and little minds in some way... If I could only wish it to be so.

I'm writing this out to try and figure out what's next. To make sure I remember and then do...something.

...to be continued

The Beautiful yet abandoned Children of Romania...Part 1

Twenty years ago today (give or take a month ... or six)
    Norb, my adorably handsome man, and I went on our very first trip to Romania.
We landed, excited, but very unprepared, in the city of Bucharest, the capital.
It was spring, the weather was mild, yet the country was …. sad

It was a very sad place twenty years ago.
It was a very sad place sixteen years ago
             with some hope sprinkled in
      when we went for the second time.

But that first visit.
Our friend Angie had moved to Bucharest, Romania a few years earlier after hearing about the children of the sewers. She was to be our guide, a friend to these sweet, abandoned, soot-covered children.
What we saw in the next few days was unlike anything we could fathom
Writing about it in this blog seems trite … words won't express it, I'm afraid
        but as I write
        and then, when I post this
I pray that the reader (and I) will be moved
                        will be awakened, if need be
          and will act - in some way - for some child - somewhere

Walking the streets of Bucharest those cool spring evenings, so many years ago
       with a backpack full of sandwiches
      and our huge video camera on our shoulder
What we were about to see, and who we were about to meet, would forever change our hearts.
That huge video camera
    (way before digital, small and indiscrete)
       attracted quite a bit of attention.
The sandwiches were obviously a big hit.
We were thrilled to be there,
    not the, there's the Disneyland sign… we're here!! kind of thrilled
    not the whew!! there's one more piece of chocolate cake left!
or the
    someone else is cooking dinner tonight elation
It's more of the
      giving food to someone who was actually hungry
              (not just someone who wanted more food)
      kind of thrilled
It was the kind of elation where your hug, your smile, your attention or your sandwich actually could have made a life or death difference that day

There was a problem though.
These were kids.

The kids weren't the problem but the fact that they were (are) children…
    seriously people,
          they shouldn't be begging for a meal
    They shouldn't be without a bed
    They should never have to say no one would know if I was alive or dead

Stepping out of that van, they came...
     they came from around every corner
     running down the street, or across the railroad tracks
     climbing out of holes in the ground
filthy dirty
often shoeless
many addicted
obviously starving -- for food and for love.

What we saw - what I saw over the few days we were there,
    my words just aren't giving it due justice.
My heart - it didn't just break - it went in to shock

Our first night out, we watched as a beautiful little boy dug through the garbage can at the train station
     right beside a food vendor.
He reaches in and finds an empty ketchup bottle.
    But not so empty that he can't put it to his mouth and squeeze the last drops out.
That food vendor yells at him… swears at him in Romanian. Would have hit him if he were a couple of inches closer
Wow! That was and continues to be so confusing
         --- to my heart and my mind.
I couldn't grasp what I saw then and I can't compute it now, 20 years later

Another cool evening.
We had visited the train station, again - crossed over to the other side of an abandoned line of train tracks.
We walked around the city of Bucharest looking for Angie's "kids" - children that adored her because she came, night after night, hugging them, caring for them, feeding them
Once again our backpack full of food
      we walked down a dark, lightless street
      so dark
      so lonely
There she was - a little girl. That's all, just one little girl.
Angie bent down to say hello, asked her in Romanian what her name was,
           how old she was
                who she was with and where she had come from.

A little girl. Alone.

She couldn't have been older than seven years old. She was small enough to be five or six. It was May. It was a very cool spring evening on the streets of Bucharest. It was after midnight!
Her little dress and little shoes... they were not enough.
I don't remember her name
I don't remember her exact age
I don't remember

The whole scenario was like watching a clip from some movie set back in an era that I just couldn't relate to - some horrific story about children being left alone in some far away place. A story that was being told so that we would be shocked while being entertained.
This was not academy award stuff
This was happening in front of me.
That sweet, darling little girl was alone,
         and I regret saying that we left her - alone.

The crazy part is, in that moment, what were we to do?
We didn't live there, in Romania.
We didn't have the option of (legally) bundling her up, bringing her home with us to California.
There wasn't a girl's home in Bucharest (yet*) to bring her home to, and sad to say the orphanages weren't always the best option (overworked and overwhelmed)
It feels so lame to say this
    I'm risking here, hoping that you won't be moved to rebuke or scold.
    Or then again, go ahead
          because maybe I deserve scolding, for not being "brave enough" to take her with me.
Anyway, I took off my socks
       my long adult-sized socks.
I put them on her little feet
       under her little shoes.
I took off my flannel shirt, my very large shirt
      put it over her little dress.
I rolled up the sleeves, those long over-sized sleeves.
Angie was talking with her the whole time.
          where do you live? are you with anyone?
I have to tell you I don't even remember much about that or much that happened afterwards.
All I know is … we walked away.
   She was abandoned by her parents.
   She was abandoned by her siblings.
   She was abandoned by a broken society.
Put on a train in another part of this beautiful but very sad country
At the end of the track she got off.
She had nobody. Nobody!!!

to be continued ...


* Response to emergencies should go faster, but frustratingly, it often takes an agonizingly amount of time. It takes money, resources, property and people. Since we first visited over 20 years ago I'm thrilled to report that Angie's kids have a place to call home. Soon after we visited, Children's Relief Network opened both boys and girls homes in Romania, caring for the abandoned children of a country broken by dictatorship many decades earlier.

Angie's Kids

Planned Parenthood??

My family ... amazing!  

Perfect??   umm... 

     if my kids heard the word perfect they just might burst out laughing or roll their eyes or walk out of the room, shaking their head in that way that says “you’re delusional”

But I'm the mom - I know

    we are perfectly put together.

These lenses in my eyes allow me to see my kids, my family, very uniquely, perfectly formed by a perfect Creator.

My five kids 

(no we didn’t adopt again

no I didn’t get pregnant again

yes my daughter got married and now he’s ours)

 are definitely amazing!

They are God’s gift to me, to both their dad and me.

We are a perfectly formed family.

Years ago I would hear people talk about their perfectly planned family - 

        3 kids, 

        3 years apart

        star athletes, full-ride scholarships.... you get the picture.

They had it all planned out.

We can’t relate to that. Every time we tried to plan it was shifted, just a little here, a lot there.

The backward glance on my life helps me to see what I once thought as disappointments, difficult waiting times, a seemingly silent God, were actually a perfect plan in motion.

Forming our family has been an adventure, one sweet life at at time finding each other.

Just as God intended

Because 

Before the world began ... He knew us

While I was in my mother's womb, He knew me

While in their birth mothers' wombs, He knew them

While in my womb, He knew them

 He knew my sweet girl, the one who made me a mommy, 

      a woman one who has learned how to live grace and give grace like few 
      others,

 He knew my first boy, a gift of life, 

      one who was created with such purpose, definitely wanted, wired to love 
      fiercely

 He knew my second boy, a life of great worth, 
      one who is divinely appointed and chosen, who will impact his world with a story of 
      life given 
 He knew my third boy, a treasure to all who know him, 
       uniquely gifted with empathy and wisdom beyond his years 
 He knew my dear son-in-law, 
       one who is discovering a Father who has been there always,
       one who has stolen her heart and ours

amazing...

each one of them, perfect, called by name

He knew how much I would blow it as a mom 

           and yet he picked me to be their mom. 

Amazing!

He knew we, as their parents, would be asked very hard questions, a lot of “whys” at such young ages

He knew we wouldn’t always have all those answers 

           and yet he picked us to be their mom and dad. 

Amazing!!

He knew I would love them so much my heart hurt 

          but that I didn’t really understand love like He does 

          my imperfect, learning-on-the-fly, dependent on God kind of love

                                 because He is Love

and yet He planned for me to be their mom. 

Amazing!!!

He knows the answers to some very hard questions that are asked in our home. Some answers I don’t have, but I’m confident He does have.

I don’t have a clue why people are cruel

I don't know why they abandon, or others abuse, why people bully, why there is rejection

I don't know why it some times looks like He’s standing there, with arms crossed, indifferent, while life is pummeling us to the ground.

But I do know He is not indifferent
I do know that before the world was even created that He already knew me, each one of us

The truth is

He has promised to never leave me, He does not abandon

The truth is

We are given a hope and a purpose in a world that is hopeless and purposeless

The truth is
 He hears my prayers

          He answers my prayers

          He knows the story of my life before I know it

So, sometimes with faith that is so small it is hard to even see - I will choose to trust my God

I will surrender to Him my parenting abilities

           I will give Him my plans for the future

I will love my family .... my amazing, God-put-together family!!