Friday, April 1, 2011

She cries...No one comes.

A beautiful baby. 
A beautiful, brand new baby.
She is placed in a crib.
Alone.
She cries.
No one comes.
She cries until she is worn out.
Eventually she is fed and possibly her diaper is changed.
She is sleepy.
She cries.
No one comes.
Eventually she cries herself to sleep.
She awakes.
All she wants is to be held.
She cries.
No one comes.
Many weeks pass.
She wants to eat.
She wants to sleep.
She wants to be cuddled.
She cries.
No one comes.
Months pass.
She no longer cries.

This is the life of many orphans.  Babies speak to us through crying.  It is how they tell us they are hungry, or tired, or that they just need to be held.  If their cries are always ignored...eventually they will stop crying.

In the first 24 hours of Bethany's life she would cry for no reason other than wanting to be held.  Of course, I gladly obliged!  I could pick her up and she would immediately stop crying.  Even now, at 3 months old, when she gets sleepy I pick her up, she cuddles into me and goes right to sleep.  It has made me think a lot about orphans.  I am not exaggerating when I say that babies lay in their cribs and eventually forget how to cry.  I realized this more when my 8 year old came crying to me recently because she had hurt herself.  Many 8 year old orphans hurt themselves, but shed no tears, and go to no one for comfort...because they don't know how.

How do I know this?  Because I have seen it!  I have seen it through a friend's children who were adopted from Eastern Europe.  They would get hurt, but they wouldn't cry and they wouldn't seek to be comforted.  It was the same for Nastia, the orphan we hosted last Summer.  In the beginning, we were strangers to her, so I could understand why she wouldn't come to us for comfort if she stubbed her toe.  But over time, I could see that going to someone for comfort was actually uncomfortable because it was not normal for her.

Why would I write all of this?  Because I want you to think.  I want you to think about the millions of orphans around the world.  I want you to do something!  Adopt...support someone else who is adopting...pray...
                             because God wants you to!

If you have any questions about how you can adopt, or how you can help someone else adopt, or how you can support an orphanage please leave me a comment!!!