Cliff Notes

How many times have you considered sharing kindness with someone and then let your thoughts get the best of you? 

You see the frantic mama at Target, a child climbing her leg and begging for every item they see, darting off when she loses grasp only for a second, a baby in the cart crying unstoppably with strangers gawking, shaking their heads with the silent "tsk tsk," now losing patience and growling angry "knock it offs," or worse, at the little ones watching, and learning...a list of items to find and exhaustion written all over her body. 

You know what to do.  You know exactly what she's feeling in that moment. 

We all do. 

But what if we ask to help and she snarls at us?  What if she tells me to mind my own business?  What if she gets offended?  What if it's uncomfortable?  What if I'll be late to my next stop?  What if...? 

I'm no stranger to this game, and let me tell you when it
beats me, I regret it.  Every. Single. Time. 

Why didn't I do something?  Maybe all she really needed in that moment was a friend...a warm body...someone to say, "You're not gonna' do this alone."  Could it be that that's why I was there and that's why she was there, in that aisle, together, we mothers?  I'll never know.  And neither will she. 

What if we didn't listen to these voices in our heads that tell us that the guy with the sign on the street corner is going to spend your hard earned precious cash on alcohol?  That the guy in the wheelchair at Wal-Mart would be offended if you reached for something on the top shelf for him?  That the frazzled mama at the park (or the store or church or sidewalk or....oh let's face it, we mama's work our tails off and are more often than not are...frazzled) isn't going to snap our heads off when we offer an understanding hand? 

What if we give some of our money away and we actually DO have enough for our own family at the end of the month?  

What if that teeny tiny financial contribution we actually CAN make to larger-picture projects (like wells for clean water, global food crisis relief, or even rescuing girls from living nightmares) really won't go to pay high-priced overhead executives and really will work in unison with thousands of other teeny tiny contributions to CHANGE. THE. WORLD? 

I tell my girls (and myself, the one who REALLY needs to hear it),

"If you get a chance to love someone...take it." 

Don't let the "what if's" or the "there's nothing I can do's" or the "I've got enough on my own plate's" rob you of this.  This chance is precious and fleeting.  The frazzled mom's going to disappear back into her life.  The homeless guy's going to find a different corner and sleep on a different cold ground with the same old hunger in his belly.  The starving child will die.  The enslaved girl will die over and over again, every day.   

Take the chance. 

Here's a little guy named Cliff. 

I ran into him on Rage Against the Minivan as the author quoted a woman who had visited (and adopted from) an orphange where Cliff is from, a country where at age 3, abandoned special needs children are subjected to a life in a mental institution.  Life, of course, is a relative term.

The woman's account is long, but once I began reading, there was no stopping.  By the end, I knew I was standing face to face with a chance. 

Please find a quiet moment to read what she said. 

It is important. 

And it's happening now. 

“I’m not sure how it all works. There surely must be a time in an orphan's life when they are separated into groups of healthy children, those with special needs, and the few with profound needs. Even if you have never been into a third world country orphanage, it goes without saying that NO child deserves to live in a place like that. But, it is [very sadly] a fact of life. We live in a fallen world and until Jesus returns to take us home, places like these will exist.

I have noticed that sometimes children with special needs are in the same rooms as healthy children. Like our Harper–she was in a room with one or two kiddos who had ‘needs’, but the others were all typically developing children. Harper got a good deal. My guess is that the orphanage workers saw that she was developing fairly well, and she got put with the mixed group of children.

Hailee on the other hand was not so fortunate. I’m sure her development as an infant must have been lagging–a definite red flag for those who make decisions as to which room the children will live in. The result being that our sweet girl ended up in the place I refer to as that room. The room for the precious children who have more profound needs–those who struggle more than others.

It’s a heartbreaking place. I cannot even begin to describe the feelings and emotions that overcame me each day I walked into that horrible room to take my Hailee out of her crib.

Hailee was one of just six children. It’s hard to tell whether the others are boys or girls. The children there are dressed in whatever is available on the day, and their hair is kept ultra short for convenience. Most of you who have journeyed with me throughout this adoption know that Hailee was drugged–day and night. On the day I met Hailee I was given all her medical information (which was all of two lines), and told that she was on medication for “best sleep”. Um, yeah, the kind that kept her so sedated that she could barely function. A strong tranquilizer for ADULTS. All in the name of “best sleep”. Unfortunately, I am sad to tell you that Hailee was not just an isolated case, a child who had behavior problems that justified the drug. The drug was required for every single child in that room.

The children there cannot function. They sleep most of their lives away. They are so sedated that they can barely keep their eyes open, even when they are awake. They merely exist from day to day.

I cried like I have never wept. Looking at their sweet faces just about killed me. I was not allowed to pick the children up out of the cribs. But each day I walked around to each one of those precious souls lying there and gently stroked their faces and rubbed their frail, malnourished bodies. I longed for them to know the joy of a tender touch. It was something they knew absolutely nothing about. Not once in all my weeks of visiting did I see any of these children picked up and loved. Never! Even crying children, longing for arms to hold them, never got picked up and loved. They were taken out of the crib ONLY to be fed and changed. How do I know these things? Because the Lord gave me a window to see the things He needed me to see. He allowed my heart to break for the things that break His. Images I cannot escape.

Many, many of you have written to me and asked me about what happened to Hailee here. I could not say anything at the time–our adoption could have been threatened. I still need to be cautious for the sake of other adopting families. I will say that I inquired about what happened. I wept as I held my daughter that day–in my heart I knew that she had suffered at the hands of those who were meant to care for her, those who were meant to love and protect her?

One day I could not take anymore. I had been there a long time, and the things I saw day after day were beginning to wear me down. I walked into the building and saw that there was a group of Americans working with many of the kids. They were staff from a clinic that works with children who have special needs here in the USA. They had taken over wheelchairs, leg braces, and many other kinds of therapeutic things for kids in a few orphanages. They did an incredible job. It was so amazing to see. I watched them as they fitted child after child with braces. The joy of seeing many of them standing on their legs for the first time was priceless. I looked for some of the children from Hailee’s room–but there were none. I was later told from my translator that the clinic workers were not allowed to help those kids.

Oh God in heaven, how can it be? More than most, they need help. They need braces. They need to learn how to stand on their own two feet. They need wheelchairs. Yet, they’re the one group not permitted to get the help they so desperately need. They’re the children locked away and forgotten about.

Do you want to see them? The ones I had to leave behind? Would you like to see the faces I looked at one last time, turned my back on, and had to walk away from…knowing the life they lead? The angelic faces I feel so powerless, yet so desperate to help. 

How will this teeny tiny angel survive a mental asylum? How? There is no way. Unless a family comes to adopt him, he will surely die. My heart cannot comprehend it all. He is just too sweet for words. He reminds me so much of Hailee. He too has the bump on his forehead from banging it against the bars of the crib.

These children wear pajamas all day long–it is all they know.

The cribs are crammed into a very little room.

They lie there longing for someone to pick them up.

This is no life for a child–any child. Whether they have ’special needs’ or not, NO child deserves this.

Here is a chance to love someone.  I saw it and told myself,
"You can't afford this right now.  Someone else will do it.  We already gave to _______ this month.  Even if you gave, you could only give a tiny amount, and what good is that going to do?"  (some of us are slow learners)  ;-)  I even left the site and continued on with my day. 

But the truth was heavy. 

And the chance was there. 

And the stakes were high.   

I pushed the "ChipIn" button and gave my embarrassingly 
small contribution in thought of sweet 'lil Cliff and the God of
loaves and fishes who brought me to that site to meet Cliff and who gave me, the slow learner, the chance to love someone. 

Go HERE for your chance to love on sweet baby Cliff. 

I promise you there is no greater investment.