Of all the posts I have written this is the most difficult. It is about something so near and dear on my heart, I sometimes feel my heart will surely burst with enormity of it's burden! I hope these words will come from God and not my own mediocre abilities!
I want to start by explaining what I mean by the above title. Please don't think I mean that the people of China are somehow evil or undeserving. We know God loves his lost sheep most of all. So surely he weeps for these forsaken souls. It's so hard to understand China and these sweet children who suffer in silence. The policy of a government, with no God, cannot help but fail. Even if it survives on paper where is its glory, it's humanity???
The boy in the picture above is our beloved son Jilei, taken within days of his abandonment. At four he was found on bench in a hospital, unclaimed. What does he remember of this event? Perhaps we'll never know. But in reading about China I have found the situation more complicated than simple abandonment and adoption. I've read some families desperate to keep their second child will try to hide that child. Should some friend or neighbor notify the authority, the child is taken by officials, who then label the child as abandoned. From there the child is placed in the orphanage, many have no knowledge why they are there. At 14 if unadopted~and sadly most are not~they are aged out of the system, to make their own way in a country prejudiced against the orphaned and without lineage. Even if a family should succeed in hiding the second child, what does the future hold for that child? No education, no documents, no medical care. Abandoned by family, abandoned by country, only through Christ can they find their Eternal Father.
How many children wait in China? No one knows an exact number. This last month over 2,000 children were on the shared list of special needs children. Then most agencies have their own assigned special needs children, and then there are the children with no identified special needs. So what is a special need? Any child over age 6 is, even if the child has no medical or physical condition. In Jilei's case his age and a very minor medical condition make him special needs. His medical problem will be corrected as outpatient and won't effect him in any way after repair.
The picture of Jilei above was used for his "finding ad". Each month in a local legal paper these ads are placed. With Jilei's finding ad were 43 other ads and that was in just Shanghai for one month! Like a pet's lost and find there they are, row upon row of children's faces. Can you imagine the uproar if just one child was found abandoned in your community? But in China it's just another day, another forsaken child.
There are so many ways to help these blessed children, through sponsorship, through gifts to adoption grants (which allowed our last adoption to happen), but also through prayer and the sharing of their story with others. You never know, a friend, of a friend, of a friend, may be thinking of adoption, even if they have never spoken of it. I know we never would have opened the discussion of adoption if not for a newspaper article I nearly threw away! So pass it on and keep them in prayer, not just the little ones, but all those who work so unselfishly to care for them and find them homes. Pray for all the Lost Souls in China and elsewhere in this world, who live without knowing the Eternal Love of our Father in Heaven.
So having said all this I want to post a couple links, if you get a minute to visit them great, if you can find another minute to pass them on, even better! You may never know you helped a special child find their forever family.
www.lwbcommunity.org
www.thestarfishfosterhome.org
www.cornbreadandchopsticks.blogspot.com
www.waitingchildreninchina.blogspot.com
www.nohandsbutours.com
www.rainbowkids.com
www.brittanyshope.org
www.newdaycreations.com/foster/wait.html
www.reecesrainbow.com
And our friends at Bethany and Gift of Adoption, whose links are on the left!
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