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

i love my new friends

i want you to meet Ashley, Albert, Guadalupe, and sweet Haley

         brown-eyed Angel and her big brother George

            The Boys … Xavier, Brandon and Felipe

there are dozens more, but this is good enough for now

they range in age from 5 months to 14 years old

     we love playing Play-doh together ...
                    (i make a cool snake, and an amazing snowman)

     we love to eat food …

              but, they have to show up at a park with their parents on a Sunday

                      and wait for the nice church people to give their family food 

               or they stand in line with food stamps to get their weekly rations

               or they ask the very caring social worker if it's snack time yet

          … i just go to Costco or Trader Joe's and buy all the food and snacks my heart desires 

    we love to watch Madagascar or The Incredibles together, or even a good chick flick

    we love to hang with friends

              but, they have to wait for hours in a park to get new-old clothes

                      when they'd rather hang at the mall, play in the park
                               or just be safe in a home to call their own

         …. i just text my friends and say "wanna get coffee and a gluten-free donut?"

    we all love to sleep in a warm safe place, and be loved by our parents and family 

some of my new friends have very loving parents who want the best for their kids, 

               but language or culture,
                        illness, or even the law has added to the weight of growing up

        addiction, abuse, neglect or abandonment are something they are all too familiar with

kids should not be waiting in a park all day
                      where drug addicts are sleeping off a binge
                      waiting for a fix, tweaking
                      or freaking out from a bad trip

kids should not be so scared in their own home

                so familiar with violence that they've figured out,
                     by two years old,
                where to hide, what not to say, be invisible

they should not have to be taken from their neighborhood, their school, their friends

they should not be afraid of their mom, or not even know who their mom is


BUT this is reality … today
                 in Orange County
                 in Vancouver
                 in Germany, Finland, Thailand, New Zealand, Mexico, Russia, Great Britain ...

I love my new friends!
Some of them live in a place where beautiful people care for children who cannot go back to their own homes - in order to keep them safe. These little ones (and bigger ones too) are waiting for a family to take them to a safe place to live, with their own bed, a fridge to go to to have snacks, and "parents" who bring them to school, take them on vacation, give them birthday gifts.

Some of them live with their parents, or grandparents.
They live in tenement housing or apartments.
They do have shelter and somewhere to sleep - though rarely a bed of their own.
They live with their parents, or a mom or a grandma, who struggle to have enough money for a bus ride, let alone a school uniform.
Weekly they show up at a park,
     not a "beautiful flowers, jungle gym, baseball field" kind of park,
The kind where the bruised and the wounded of the mind sleep, where the addicted, abandoned and broken of our society choose to call home, a tarp to call their bed.
These kids hang out there for hours.
It's what their weekend consists of
      hoping people will show up with meals, water bottles, pizzas, sandwiches, clothes or even shoes in their actual size.

I love my new friends.

Playing Play-doh is a start,
Giving them a hug with one arm and a sandwich with the other,
Asking them their name, and really wanting to know it,
Letting them practice their English while I practice my Spanish,
Feeding them vegetables when all they've had is fried, sugary food,
Holding them and saying good night when they are crying and don't want you to leave cause they're scared of the dark.

I guess it's something
       for me it's not quite enough...
But it's a start.

I love my new friends.


Foster Care - One Family's Story
Foster Care - Another Family's Story
CASA Court Advocate for Children
Orangewood Children's Home - Orange County

Go make some friends today.

when light shines in a dark place

Pornography
(just typing it makes me nauseous)
People don't always connect porn to forced labor or human trafficking
Entertainment for adults
      it's fine if it isn't hurting anyone
           … child abduction, sex slavery
       
What if those of us who haven't connected this
       …. did

What if a society,
      that is all about personal choice, individual rights,
actually Got it!

Global sex industry.
When you stop and think of what that is,
    what it really is,
it's astonishing that we’re not all just storming the gates of brothels, massage parlors and strip joints to rescue. But our over-sexed society we live in yells at us that
     maybe they’ve chosen this life style,
     it’s not hurting anyone,
     they’re adults - let them make up their own mind.

Okay, fine.
But have you never seen someone driving down the street, speeding just a little too fast
     you flash your lights at them to warn them that a radar gun is hiding around the corner
Have you ever poured yourself a glass of milk, only to discover it’s spoiled
     you tell your brother before he takes a drink
Or you don't
They’re able to make up their own mind
I'm not holding the radar gun
I'm not pouring the milk down their throat
Tough for them if they get a ticket, they should be driving slower.
Sorry it made you throw up … oops!

Ya, those are pretty harmless life events.
     Sour milk and speeding tickets… common events in our house

But, here's that pause again,
   what if
     …. that young woman who dances at the club,
     …. the young boy who goes to see the R rated-should-be-NC17-movie with his friends
     …. the seedy massage parlor in the strip mall filled with people who just wanted a job,
                never imagined this would be their life
  what if we stepped up.
There's risk, of course there's risk
          it’s my life, get out of my business, leave me alone, what’s your problem?

But if we don’t do something,
   it’s like we’re buying the porn magazine ourselves,
   going to the strip club with our mates - girl's night out,
   getting a really inexpensive massage,
     hiring slave labor
         hiring a little girl…

It’s like we’re saying these people are fine, no one’s being harmed.
That’s a lie!

I heard a phrase yesterday “ladyboy”
 it made my face drop,
   eyes well up with tears
     haunted my mind… confused me
Actually I’m not sure I can, or want to even process what that means.
It was explained to me that this is an issue
       little boys are raised to be ladies*
       dressed as women for prostitution with men
       to be used in the sex trade.
       sexual "enjoyment."
       adult entertainment.
               It’s my choice, it’s none of your business, leave me alone!

AHHHH!!!
What am I supposed to do with this?
Now, don't forget the vulnerable that live here in North America.
I’m just now discovering who they can be
    The parentless, the abused, the abandoned.
         Ask a social worker or a foster parent or a judge in juvenile court
                 It's a huge concern ...

And then there's this ...
    sex addicts and “johns” and pedophiles.
        porn consumers, porn producers, porn actors, porn addicts
This isn’t a one-sided atrocity. This isn’t compartmentalized sin. Sin kills, it effects, it seeps in to lives and hearts. It destroys, pummels. It tricks, deceives and mocks what is created to be beautiful.
The perversion of this phrase “ladyboy” is horrendous. It perverts perversion. It says I can create you to do and be what I want to try to satisfy some thing that will only require more. Evil never satisfies. It only destroys.
The sin slope is slippery.
No one starts out at the bottom, although we are born with a sin nature
     Grace takes care of that if we accept it…
No one starts their life wanting to degrade, brutalize another human being.
But it's happening.
It's not being talked about enough.

When light shines in a dark place
When Light shines in a dark place, it dominates, eradicates the darkness
    Darkness just can not beat out Light … that's a reality!

What am I going to do now that I know this is happening?
I do know Truth, I know Love and I can share Him.
I'll ask Him to forgive me
I will write, I will warn and I will ask God to use the Light to shine through me.
I will love and I will pray …

*Some parents in Thailand and India do this for money for their families
See little-one-caught-dancing-in-galactic-genetics by Lauren Grams

If you are a victim, in any way: trapped, confused, scared, affected by this very difficult reality, please feel free to contact me at khkohler@gmail.com. 
You are very much loved!

Dreaming...

I used to dream of singing,
   not just in the rain
  or even in the shower
          ... but on a big stage,
              with a sound system that made me sound good

                             with a band,
                             with back up singers,
                             with back up dancers (j/k),

   or in a small room with an enraptured audience,                         
           on a stool with a guitar,
           at the piano, effortlessly playing
           .... singing like no one else was in that room
           .... singing for an Audience of One

I used to dream of traveling the world,
      a flight attendant, a pilot
             suitcase never quite unpacked
    traveling this vast planet, seeing the world
I would be able to speak multiple languages, fluently.
       communicate to strangers, who would soon become friends because that barrier of language would be gone

I used to dream I could play instruments,
            not just piano
                but saxophone (very groovy)
                guitar
                    no....  bass guitar (very cool)!!!!
     I would definitely be in a "chick band"

I used to dream that one day I would be a mom to dozens of kids
             rescue the children of the world who seemingly had no one to call their own
                             those who had no parents, no one to take care of them
     or I would show up at bus stations, in large cities, ready to snatch beautiful, broken young people who had run away
run from abuse or from themselves
   rescuing them from the Predator, the Bully who was waiting
I imagined being the one to find an abandoned baby, maybe left on my door step, maybe crying out in a dark alley, or stuffed in a bag, left with little more than one more breath of life yet much more love to give

Now I dream of being a writer ...
one who spends hours on my laptop creating story lines,
                                                      chapters to books,
                                               lyrics to songs,
                                         posts on a blog
        words that encourage a friend
        words that annihilate that sense of isolation that creeps at our minds saying
             "we're alone in this, nobody can relate to what I'm going through"
        words that tell stories of true life, of what has happened, what is possible
        words that give Truth
        words that offer Hope
I dream of having that time, to share what flows out of my heart and my head
         generously offered to me by my Creator
To be one of His many ways that He answers prayer, He changes hearts, He gives purpose

I haven't sung in a while, I never did conquer the bass guitar (I'm not dead yet ...)
But I have sung in the shower, in the rain, and even on that big stage,
          for my Audience of One!
I never did get my pilot's license, or serve people their drinks thousands of feet in the air
But I have traveled the world, met strangers who became friends
There are not dozens of children living in my home, I've never rescued a run away or found a baby abandoned ... but again, I'm not dead yet!

I still wish I could grab a microphone once in a while, with a bass wrapped over my shoulder, singing a song in my perfect vocal range, belting it out with the strength of a diva

But this I can do
     I can write, I will keep writing,
                                 and I will keep dreaming!

Children of the Broken Heart

I don’t think I have quite understood the depths to which a heart can break.

Sure….my heart has broken many times before
And maybe your heart has not just been broken, but truly decimated...
     so many broken promises, 
     vows shattered
     betrayal ... of those you thought loved you

There are friends that don’t call anymore, just because they’re busy.

Friends that stop being friends….just because they do (what is that?)

But when your heart is broken, before you even knew, before you had a thought to call your own. Before you knew your own name or that you even were...

How is that possible?

Oh it is so possible.
I am intimately familiar with that "fracturing of the heart."
We, Norb and I, have held, listened, wept over ... 

Ahhh!!

The broken heart of a child, one who is conceived out of a “moment” in life, one who is given the chance at that life but not given the chance to share that life with the one who carried him…or her.

That’s the kind of broken heart that only God truly understands
I can't grasp it. My parent-heart can love but I can't grasp this...

In the womb, before birth, a bond is made. A trust is formed because that's just how it should be. My mama's heart screams for that to always be so ... 
"I won't ever leave you. I will protect you forever!"

Such grief.
When sickness, death, addiction, illness, or just the absolute honest inability to care. These are the many reasons. Some so selfish, some so necessary, but all so difficult. The result... a heart is broken.

I have read the following words many times before. I've read them as they pertain to me, my life, my Being Known and I have treasured them.

before there was a single word on my tongue...

when I was being made in secret...your eyes saw me

Those words ... that Truth right there ...

It knocks Betrayal and Abandonment off of it's caustic, demanding self-made pedestal. It brings Brokenness to its proverbial knees.

He sees the Before, During and After abandonment…and He chooses to never, EVER abandon!!

The broken heart is not from the God who allowed the conception

The broken heart is not caused by the God that gave that sweet little life it's first breath

He is the mender, the healer, the I-will-never-leave-you-EVER God!

Before we were a thought... we were on His mind.

A Mom and Her World

Before I throw pearls of wisdom to the world through this thing called a blog ... you need to know a few things about me.

I am a mom, who happens to adore her children
I am a woman who loves her husband ... a lot!
I am currently employed

Right there I know a few of you who may read this have already tuned me out. You can't relate at all. Maybe it's because of the loving her family thing... maybe it's the having a job thing.
That's the thing about blogs, and first impressions, and images and written words. There is so much more behind everything we see. Except one thing!  (But more on Him later)

I love my family! (you figured that out, right?)
I love laughter!
I love the ocean, the sun, the sand!
I love children!
I love dessert... and coffee!
I love my friends ... and friendship (what a great invention)!

Now ... I got your attention again, because now you're thinking "I'd like to have a coffee with her. But it's just sounding so perfect." There's that misunderstanding thing again.

I'm saddened by disease and those who suffer.
I'm saddened by abandonment.
I'm saddened by rejection and misunderstandings.

This blog seems to be very self-serving. And I guess it is. It is about me - weird. But I do have a story to tell and One who seems to want me to share His part in it.

I can't fix it all but I can share my story ... I can give some hope with my story ...

And one thing I will try not to do is to borrow any trouble from tomorrow because

Isn't today enough?