My Burdened Heart Becomes Even Heavier

I have been feeling very burdened over the past month for orphans...orphans in Russia, America, and all over the world. I don't know where God is leading us, but I know that we will not end with the adoption of one baby from Russia. We don't know whether this means we will adopt again (although that is a very huge possibility...just trying to focus on getting through one at a time), or whether we are going to try to start an orphan care ministry through our church, or if we as a family are going to do a hands on service project to help orphans on a regular basis. We are just praying hard about this right now....it's a bizarre shift of focus though.

Previous to these past few months, whenever I would think about an orphan, I would be just thinking of and praying for the one God has for us to bring home.... now, my prayers are bigger- Lord, please be with every orphan in every country who is longing for a loving mom or dad to feed them, to change them, or to just hold them. The fulfillment of life's most basic needs...oh, how I know I took that for granted.  As we visited the shore this past week, I was reading a life changing book (Thank you Aunt Sue!) "The Boy From Baby House 10," which tells the horrific yet amazing story of a boy who was adopted at the age of 8 from a Baby Home in Moscow. While I was reading about how he would lay in his crib in his own mess, and wish he had strength in his legs to stand, and to get himself up out of his "mess" kids around me were building sand castles.  While I was reading about a boy who was sent to a mental asylum because he could not answer questions like, "What is this (picture of a loaf of bread)?"  because he had never seen anything more than half a slice of bread at one time, sea gulls around me were stealing more bread than this boy had eaten in the first few years of his life. While I was reading about how he couldn't answer the question, "What kind of tree is this?" (because he had never even been in the outside yard surrounding his orphanage) I was laying on sand, watching kids play with it, and eat it. It moved me to tears....again, and again. How could these kids be labeled "imbeciles" because they didn't know answers to questions that they did not have a chance at knowing! My heart is broken for these.

So, as we wait, we aren't as focused on ourselves....we have everything! We are focused on the ones who have nothing, and we are praying that somehow more people would open their hearts to love and help an orphan. I heard someone quote a Christian magazine that said, "If every church (not family) in America adopted ONE child, there would be no more orphans in the world." What a powerful statistic. While asking and praying that EVERY orphan find a family is a huge request, we serve an awesome God who is able to do above and beyond all that we could ever ask.