Waiting Children

Sometimes I look online at the pictures of orphans waiting to be adopted. I don't know why I do it to myself; I always end up in tears. I used to do this, before we were blessed with Caysen. It hurt to look at them then too, but now it hurts so much more.

Why does it hurt more? Because I replace those faces with Caysen's face. He could be one of those waiting children. In fact, there's a good chance he would be a waiting child because he is considered special needs. If the hospital in Taiwan hadn't called Holly & Trena, or if H&T had ignored God tugging at their hearts to take him in, there's no telling where he would be right now. I love him more than I can ever express, and it breaks my heart to picture his face on one of those lists, lists of children who don't have a mommy and daddy. Actually, it makes me physically sick!

In comparison to some other places, Caysen probably would have had it pretty good as an orphan (if that's possible). There are places in this world where not only do the children not have a mommy and daddy, their basic human needs can't even be met. No food, no shelter from the elements, no shoes or clothes, infected by all kinds of horrible diseases, lucky if they get one meal a week! And then there are the ones with special needs who are institutionalized if they are not adopted by a certain age (usually about 5 years old)!

It makes me want to adopt them all. Yep, all 147 million of them! Lance and I can't do that alone, but the population of the US is about 300 million, so if each adult/couple adopted one child, we could make a pretty huge dent!

Am I going to stop looking at the sweet faces of the waiting children? Nope, not going to happen. Is it still going to hurt to look? Most definitely! But I think it's supposed to hurt. I need to be reminded of those precious children every day because it is my duty, as a servant of God, to care for them.

If you have a child, adopted or not, just try and picture them on one of those waiting children lists without shedding a tear. I'm not saying that we all have to adopt, but do something. There are so many ministries around the world that can use support of all kinds, volunteer work, monetary donations, food or clothing donations, the list goes on...

I totally get it, I used to ignore the orphan and life was good. But now I know, and I can't ignore it. Like I said, it hurts, but I want you to know too, because it will never get better if we keep ignoring it. I'll leave you with a picture of a sweet boy who is not on a waiting child list, he is our "one less."