Haiti is heavy on my heart still. I am broken hearted for all the orphans. I cry when I see news coverage of babies sleeping in the back of large trucks, with no formula to drink, nowhere warm to sleep, no place to call "home". I read news articles and blog posts about orphanages that have collapsed, and they are sleeping in the courtyards with no food or water to drink. But there is a small light at the end of the tunnel. The ones who were in the process of being adopted are slowly being allowed into the country. Emergency Visas are being issued. Orphans are being allowed to join their forever families. Others are being "rescued" and brought to the states for safekeeping until they have a safe place to return to in their home country. There are churches and organizations running to the forefront to fight for the orphan. Praise Jesus! It is heartbreaking that it takes something like this for most people to be advocates for orphans, but their eyes are being opened. Hopefully after this disaster they don't go back to their tunnel vision they had before. Hopefully they continue to fight for the orphan. To speak up for those who have no voice.
Now this is where I will mess this whole post up....though I am broken hearted for the orphans and want to make sure they get food, water, safe shelter, protection, families, or whatever it is they need currently, I believe that there is another group of children who are also orphans whom it appears are being ignored. And that kills me. I haven't heard anyone advocating the cause of the child who is wandering the street looking for their parents. The child who doesn't KNOW if they are orphaned or not. The child that is scared, alone, with not a soul looking out for them. Over 70,000 people have been buried in mass graves, most of them not even identified. The authorities are just trying to get rid of bodies to keep more disease at bay. I KNOW for a fact that those 70,000 plus people left children behind that are currently wandering the streets. Sleeping in the streets. Also starving and dying of dehydration. But I haven't heard stories of anyone trying to comb the streets to find these children.
Or what about the children, that though they have parents currently, they won't any longer when their parents die of completely preventable causes. The mother with the broken arm that shouldn't be fatal. The father with the crushed leg that was trapped below rubble and could of been reset, but now needs amputated, but won't get either and the father will die. Leaving behind another orphan. An orphan whom nobody will really realize is an orphan for probably a very long time. Things are too chaotic for anyone to be actively keeping track of that.
It seems as if everyone is focused on the orphans that were orphans before this disaster....and my heart breaks for those newly orphaned children. The ones who don't even know it yet. In the beginning people talked about the heartbreak over the thousands of more children that will end up being orphaned in the midst of this disaster. But I haven't heard anyone talk about them in a few days. That is just sad to me. I am sure they are scared. How many of them are still wandering and calling out hoping to find their parents? How many cry themselves to sleep in the middle of the street all alone? How many have pretty much come to the conclusion that their parents are dead and feel lost, confused, don't know where to go or whom to talk to? I wonder if any of them stand by the side of the mass graves as hundreds and thousands of bodies are being dumped in trying to identify their mommy or daddy?
These are the thoughts that are keeping me awake at night....
1 Comments:
wow...thanks for sharing. You didn't botch it at all:) Breaks my heart thinking about them...we need to keep praying for a plan. A plan to care for all of these children in uncertain circumstances....and most of all that they would feel God's love in the midst of tragedy.
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