When my husband and I first began researching adoption we didn't know whether we would be adopting here in the U.S. or Internationally. We knew there were children in our foster care system who needed families and we knew that there were children all over the world who needed families.
So I began to search lists of waiting children and came across an eight year old boy who instantly captured my heart and the heart of all my family.
We didn't know much about his country so we began to learn. What we learned was sad, sobering and life changing. We now knew where we were going to adopt from: The Democratic Republic of Congo.
The boy that we fell in love with wasn't available to be adopted. We were heartbroken over that but our heart was also broken for his country and we didn't want to walk away from what we knew.
There are sad, unimaginable circumstances in lots of countries, and nations. But God led us to learn about this country:
Poverty is extreme. The average family makes about a dollar a day. Not enough for an education for their children or food. Many families take turns with who gets to eat on what days. Many orphanages are lucky to have one meal a day for their children. There is no public education. You must pay to go to school. Malnourishment, malaria and other diseases are the norm. Twenty percent of children will die before their fifth birthday. Young boys are abducted and forced to become child soldiers who commit terrible crimes. Terror has been used to keep this resource rich country from its own people. They are used and exploited in order to keep the riches of this country in the hands of greedy self seeking individuals and governments. Sexual violence against women, and little girls has dubbed this country as the worst place on earth to be a woman. I could go on and on but I won't. You should research for yourself and learn about the lives of people who are in desperate need of hope, help and salvation and then pray and ask God to help you help others. One way to help is to help someone who is already doing something somewhere. Pray, and never forget that today someone is somewhere in desperate need of YOU.
Beth
The story you just told us is heartbreaking, Beth! It's painful to know such fate exist. I'm sure if it's possible to adopt the entire children population of that place, you would be among in the first line to do so. I wish there would be more people like you who would be compassionate about helping those who are in unfortunate situation.
ReplyDelete(Aiko @ GivingBirthToHope.org )