Hope Is Fading -- Video

From Mr. and Mrs. Beaver:

This past week the two of us had an extraordinary experience. We got to spend five hours in a Russian orphanage. The facility was as fine as we can imagine any children's home anywhere being. It was immaculate. It was colorful and carefully maintained. It was filled with toys for the younger children and activities to help the older children pass their time. It was peopled with teachers who seemed to genuinely care about their charges and were willing to invest their time and energy in the kids.

As new parents of three of the kids who have been living there, we were deeply pleased to see what good care they have been receiving. But, the Lord has enlarged our hearts to see beyond our own children. In this orphanage, we saw a pattern that tore at our souls.

During the time we spent in the rooms set aside  for the preschool-aged children we were surrounded by a writhing mass of happy, curious, smiling little ones. However, the faces of the older children told another story. Although the eyes of the teens spoke of intelligence and capability, they also quietly bemoaned a sense of hopelessness. At their age, their chances of adoption are infinitesimally small, and they know it. They also know that the world they will be forced to face when they leave this beautiful orphanage will be harsh and colorless and loveless.

God intended children to be part of families, and we were able to see the wear and tear on the souls of kids who have no one cheering for them, no one to hold them, no one to pick them up when they fall.

The director of the orphanage captured it this way in our court hearing: "We can give the kids everything they need, except the thing they need the most--parents."

After what we witnessed in Russia, we found this video quite moving. While the process is oversimplified here, the emotions of the child accurately reflect what we saw.



Hope is Fading – Orphan Sunday from Allan Rosenow on Vimeo.

This Sunday is National Orphan Sunday. Your church may even be planning to mark the day in some way. PLEASE consider adding a child to your family through adoption. Our God WILL enable and provide!  We've seen it again and again and again in our own family. He has been utterly faithful to our family. He is a limitless source of wisdom and provision. The Father of the Fatherless has called us to serve, to sacrifice, to die to self.