Wintry Blast

Our James would be curled in an amazingly small ball inside his sweater if he were there now. Or he would keep walking and walking to not freeze.

A wintry blast has blown down from the north pole bringing snow and sub freezing temperatures to the streets of Odessa, Ukraine. And, yes, I said 'in his sweater.' He had no jacket back in the days when he "went around outside."

Oh, brothers and sisters, pity the homeless children! Little Dima could perish if he were out there. But he is not out there; he is warm.

He is warm, and please God he won't perish. He has been taken to the school for invalid children. A normal, intelligent child with only a limp to have to live in such a place!

Perhaps it is better there than what Margo saw in Romania when they got their three children. At any rate our Peter has written to him asking him to "please stop sniffing glue, because it will make your brain bad and you will die from it. And please don't run away. Give your heart to Jesus and read your Bible. He has a plan for your life."

Amazing, it is true that even in such a place Jesus the Light of the world is shining and God does miracles. Oh, Lord of the Harvest, 'send forth laborers into the harvest' to reflect Your light.

The harvest is so plentiful, but we are so very far away. And we are so very busy living for ourselves.

A friend wrote a couple days ago...

... when a child, depending on the region's resources, reaches the age of 4-5 years old, it is determined that if there is anything wrong with the child that would prevent them from attending an orphanage school without any assistance or extra attention, they are instead sent to a regional institution for invalids.

Now this can be highly functioning children who are missing a limb, have an eye problem, have high functioning downs, CP, SB, or any thing pretty much wrong at all. These large institutions are exactly waht you can imagine the horror of putting in children ages 5-18 with all mental, psychological, very unsanitary, developmental and physcial handicaps with little food, clothing, activities or supervision.

Let me give you an example. When we adopted there was a little boy we heard about after we left and he had Spina Bifida age 5. The director of the orphanage was crying... as she had kept him back as long as possible, but she was required to send him to the institution because the regular orphanage school would not take him. Here is a very handsome normally intelligent child, being sent to live in the same 4 walls the rest of his life, because his lower legs did not work properly. And here is the reality, she said of the children she must send to this place, 80% are dead in 2 years.

Yes,that is right, 80%, regardless of how healthy they arrived. Can you imagine fighting for clothing, food and attention with almost full grown people at the age of 4 or 5. It is unimaginable, but it happens all of the time.

Friends of mine adopted a 2 year old boy in another part of Kiev region this past fall. They kept noticing limbs coming out of a playpen the back of the room, skinny pale limbs flying around for attention. After they had been there sometime they got to see the boy that was in there. He has pretty severe CP, could clap and smile but was so long his limbs fell out of the play pen he was laying in.They eventually found out that he was about 7 years old but at age 5, when the child was supposed to be turned over to the institution, the orphanage staff couldn't do it, so they hide him. They said often when non-orphange people were in the building they would rush to hide him in a back room or would try to get him to quiet down when he sang loudly. It was cruel to be there, but the orphanage staff told them through a translator, if they had not done that, he would be dead in 2 weeks if transferred, no one would make sure he would get food and he couldn't fight for it himself since he could not control his movements.

Anyway, we just want to share that this what happens to 5 year olds,so we need to get to these children fast and get them home. I hate to even think about what is going on in those places.