India Life and Loving Orphans

I am in India. I am sunburnt. The dirt underneath my nails appears to be permanent. The tan that I naively believed I was getting actually turned out to be nothing more than a buildup of sweat and earth. Cold water is my new favorite drink, due to its rarity. Peanut butter is the best meal of the day, eaten straight out of the jar with my absolute most cherished utensil, the spife (spoon, fork and knife all in one. God definitely invented it.) I have become vastly aware of my ankles at all times, and am constantly checking that they are covered by my skirts. Baby wiping is the new form of showering. Our room is a maze of mosquito nets and sleeping pads. This is my India life and I love it.

The past couple of weeks, our team (Team Rags aw yeah) received our first assignment– work on adoption papers for all of the children within Sarah’s Covenant Homes. Once completed, these papers allow the children to become eligible for adoption. That means they are available for a forever family to take them in and love them and hold them and watch Tangled and read them bedtime stories and go to the park and show them the love of the Father and ahhhhhh it’s just too much happiness!!!

Those of you who know me will probably not be surprised to learn that I cried tears of shameless joy upon hearing our assignment. Orphaned children and adoptions are the passions Jesus has so graciously given me, passions which I’ve come to realize more and more each day this year. They are the subjects which break my heart and bring fire to my soul. That great level of abandonment and lack of genuine love shown to so many children makes me want to change the world, to give my life in a quest of showing these kids that they are loved beyond measure. The whole brokenness of it all makes me think of the cross faster than anything else–that’s how I know I can dedicate my life to Jesus in this way. And here I am in India, with multiple orphanages in front of me–thank You, God, for answering my prayers.

I won’t lie though, these papers have been draining. We look through the crazy files of each child, every single piece of paper that’s ever been assigned to them (or that anyone has bothered to keep), and try to fill in the blanks on the forms. Yet even though each child has a binder, it breaks my heart that three rings hold their entire lives. There are such crazy amounts of holes and missing years, so much time that nobody thought was worth writing down. Such few pictures.

The worst are the first-report documents which tell the inklings of their earliest stories–abandoned at train station, left at hospital, found in bushes, abused, reported to authorities, the list goes on. And there are so many of them. As expected, none of these reports have what you might call a “heartwarming” sense to them. Even if their parents handed them over to the home themselves because they knew they couldn’t provide, these kids are still labeled as orphaned. Some of them don’t even have a report at all, their very beginnings are a total mystery. One child we looked at had no records at all until 4 years old. Many blanks are marked in all caps and bolded: UNKNOWN. But one thing seems to hold true for all of the children here–they were abandoned because of their special needs. Can you feel the heart of Jesus breaking within you?

Then there are the pictures of the children in the newspapers, a last call for the parents to come claim them before the kids–their children!–become part of the system. What gets me about these is that there are so many children in each one, and I know that at least some of the parents have seen these ads. They saw their child in the most desperate section of the paper and refused them. It makes me sick and sad and angry and compassionate and utterly broken all at one time. I cannot imagine that level of desperation.

All I know is what I see in front of me: children who have been told countless times that they are not wanted, they are not deserving of a family, they are not worth the trouble. Many of them struggle to receive sponsorship each month, money to go to school, such basic needs!

Here’s a scenario: We’re back in biblical times. You find a child crying on the side of the road, a note pinned to him, “We don’t want him anymore.” You turn around and there is Jesus Himself in the flesh, watching you with loving eyes, asking you to care for the child. What do you do? Would you leave that kid for someone else saying, “I can’t handle that.” Would you say, “I love You, but I can’t do this.” Would you  give the kid your old hand-me-down clothes with holes in them, or something brand new? What would you do if Jesus was watching?

What would you do if Jesus was that kid?

Brothers and sisters, that is the test. Because here’s the truth: These kids are Jesus.

Even if they are hard to take care of, even if they come with their difficulties, they are deserving of unconditional love. They are deserving of a family and a mommy who holds them when they’re afraid. Regardless of the struggles, they are deserving.

These are just some things about myself that I’ve realized here. Jesus is the orphan. I am called to love each person here more deeply, with more passion, as though they are Jesus. I say my love for others is true, but do I show it?

Kids need mommies.

Kids need daddies.

Kids need love.

These kids are Jesus.

So I ask you, what will you do to love the orphan?