Both Gabe and I are working on the child sponsorship program among some other misc. things. He has made contact with several churches asking about Orphan Sunday, as well as working with the website and sign up things, etc. We have 4 new sponsors already!!!! (Going for 100+) We have one church that we will speak at on Orphan Sunday, and hoping that more churches will say yes to setting up tables on that Sunday. He is also working on the materials to send to those churches.
I spent time working with the staff here on updating and writing new profiles for the kids this week. Each sponsor receives a profile about his/her child with sizes, likes, dislikes, needs, wants. So with the help of whomever is around to translate, we have been interviewing all 70 kids and asking them about 10 questions about things they like, etc.
Another part of the profile is a paragraph with some of the back story of the kids… a little about their family and why the kids are here. One staff person would share the story, another staff person would translate it for me, and then I would write up a paragraph in English, editing it and including as much detail as was appropriate. This was really good for me to hear, although it was heartbreaking at the same time. Here are a couple of samples…
“This girl is here because she was abused by many people. She is learning to put that aside and is trying hard in school and to do a good job.”
“These boys are here because their mom can’t support them financially and wants them to have a better life. So she put them here so they can go to school and be fed.”
“These kids are here because their mom arrived at our women’s shelter because she was escaping violence in her house. Now the kids are here so they can be taken care of while the mom recovers and tries to find a job and get her life back together.”
“This boy was abandoned by his mom when he was about 5. He was put in an orphanage but that orphanage beat the kids, so it was closed down. They took him to another orphanage but the boy ran away and has been living on his own on the streets for the past nine years. Someone found him and took him to rehab because he was on drugs. When he got out of the rehab, he asked them to take him to his mom, but his mom refused to see him or have anything to do with him. He had no place to go, so he was brought here to live.”
Some of the kids are here on a voluntary basis, meaning their parents (or usually, just a mom, or perhaps a grandparent) is trying to raise them and just needs help, so they ask if they kids can live here so they can go to school. Most of the voluntary kids see their parents fairly often. Some go home on the weekends to be with their family.
The other kids (maybe about 2/3 of them) are brought here by children’s services, and these kids have been removed due to neglect or abuse or both. The children’s services system is a little different here than in the US. I am still learning more about how it works. There are government orphanages and there are private orphanages (such as this one). The government will bring kids here, but there is no financial support for kids as there would be for foster kids in the US. The orphanage absorbs all the cost of the kids.
There is a lot more to learn and understand about how it all works. But I do understand that these kids have been through some hard and sometimes terrible situations, and this is a place where the staff seeks to love the kids, help them to be cared for physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Hearing the stories just reminded me even more of why this place is here… why we are here…
As I type this, I am sitting in a room that has Jeremiah 29:11 painted on the wall behind me. That has always been a favorite verse, and is probably familiar to some of you. But it is so appropriate for here…
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
We know that God’s plan for these kids is NOT for harm… and that He wants them to have a hope and a future. We are thankful to be a part of a place which can give the kids that hope and future.
Beautiful.heartbreaking yet beautiful.