the power of love

Today at Pleven I watched Sam learn how to play with Grace.  She would copy what Grace was doing and stare at her adoringly.  At one point her eyes seemed to be saying...”what next mom, I can do anything with you here...ANYTHING”.  Sam has gained so much confidence in herself this week.  You can see it all over her.  And what caused this change?  Grace’s love.

As Sam was being taken from Grace today, through her tears Grace asked Mitko to tell the nurse, “take good care of her until I come back”.  The nurse of course said she would, of course she would, Mitko said “she is in good hands they will take great care of her”.  But the truth is, even if they were giving her the best food possible what she needs is love.  We were trying to explain failure to thrive to Mitko earlier in the week.  How these kids need love and stimulation to grow...as much as they need food.

I was reminded of the verse that says, “i can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”.  I think I often thought Christ would just give to strength, I had never analyzed HOW he gives us strength.  Is it not through faith in his LOVE for us that we are saved, redeemed and strengthened?  

I could survive on bread and water but if I didn’t have love where would I be?  We had warned my husband that our returning to the states might be hard for us emotionally.  I think I myself equated it to culture shock when I came home from El Salvador or the Dominican Republic.  After one sees poverty the states look ridiculously wasteful and heartless.  But I was telling Grace that seeing Pleven is a different sort of beast.  In a third world country you see people with nothing BUT their family and friends.  You see a people who have joy in the face of horrible odds.  I would remind myself of this fact when I began to feel bad for what I had and what they didn’t.  But I don’t quite know what to do with leaving children who are not fully loved.

I guess I look at the moments they have when they are shown minimal love and I hope that they feel God when they are all alone.  I hope that when they are rocking themselves they are feeling the peace of the Lord fill them.  I hope that in their head, since they don’t know what else is out there they think life isn’t so bad.  

We saw a few very good Babas that held the children and engaged them but we saw some that did not.  Yes, they took the babies out of their cribs and set toys next to them but they didn’t play with them like Grace played with Sam.  They didn’t find joy in the children like we do in our children at home.  I pray that watching Grace interact with Sam will give them some examples to follow and that they would notice how much Sam changed.  Maybe they would even realize they too could make her laugh. 

We also saw a one nurse who when she came in to see Sam she stooped down to her eye level and she played with her.  Although we don’t know, we think she might have been a nurse from the hospital because her scrubs were colorful, not white like everyone else’s.  We have left over money and we will be using it to fund more nurses like her to work at the Pleven orphanage.  They will work on the 6th floor with the “chronic” cases and the “abnormalities” department. 

So I guess we pray that more people who play with children and take JOY in them will come along in our absence.  That the nurses who have seen our example and the example of the doctor at the hospital who kisses the children will begin to change how they treat these kids.  We pray that the new director will be a good person.  We pray that they would get organized in a way that would allow for more children to be adopted.  I saw a boy the other day who actually has nothing wrong with him physically, however being in this place has limited his development, he doesn’t really talk or respond to anyone but one nurse...and he can make her laugh.  Yet he isn’t adoptable because his paperwork isn’t together. So we pray that someone would come along that is driven to getting these kids in the right position for a family to adopt them.

So I guess we just pray.....a lot.

Grace and Jon told me the story of the boy on the beach with his Grandfather.  And thousands of star fish wash up on the shore.  They will die there.  So the boy begins to pick them up and toss them back in the water.  The grandfather says, “you will never be able to save them all” and the boy says, “no, but I can save this one”.

Tell people they can make a huge difference in a child’s life.  Tell them they too can adopt...because they do have the ability...... to save at least one.