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

Live Generously and Do Good…I Dare You!!!

You know we've all done it

The person is holding the sign
"homeless and hungry
will work for food"

Either you drive by and barely notice
     You drive by and are irritated that they don't have a job
             or wonder if it's a scam
     You drive by and feel guilty that you didn't stop
Or
     You drive by and just don't know what to do.

Then there's the cool Facebook post about the amazing person who is doing awesome work in some far away country. You think
     "Wow - glad they went.  I couldn't do that???"

Or you're at work
           someone told you about the person who recently adopted
                or were thinking about being foster parents.
Something inside of you reacted.
Maybe you thought
  "not everyone's called to that kind of thing"
  "they must be super-parents or crazy or …"
you might have even told yourself
   "some day, when I have my act together..."  (insert laugh here)
   "when my other kids are older"
             when, when, when

The thing about doing good is usually this …
    Do Good, right now!
Doing good isn't thinking good thoughts
It isn't making good plans
It isn't even a number on that grand ole Bucket List… some day I will

Doing good is just that
Someone rushes in front of you at the grocery store and "steals" your spot in line.
  Let them take it, smile and tell them to have a great day

The person who is working behind the counter is rude, ignorant really.
  Thank them for their time, say a prayer for yourself and then for them (just maybe they are having one of those days, months or even years)

Live Generously! You keep meaning to drop off that food, or make that call, or text that person, or make that meal.

And, back to that guy and his sign
   or that family standing there with their children
       really they shouldn't put their children through that, ahhh
   Stop your car, walk over to where they are, shake their hand and ask their name
(do you dare give them a hug?)
   Maybe you can't hand them money, but you can hand them dignity and a kind word

…I dare you



   

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.

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!!

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.