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.

This morning we met our guide for breakfast and listened to a very peppy and odd jazzy cover of killing me softly.  The hotel restaurant is an odd dichotomy of elegance mixed with very odd american or british music that really just makes it a little uncomfortable at times.

We went to the orphanage for our morning visit and we were greeted in the entryway by a couple Babas and their orphans, who happened to be ones we wanted to check on.  We got to meet Lilliana who is 12 years old and weighs 11 pounds and her future sister Sofia who is 14 and is smaller than my 2 year old son.  Grace greeted them and kissed them and told them we tried really hard to bring them food...it was emotional to see them knowing we had failed to get the formula through the front doors.


Sam's visit went really well and afterwards we took a walk around the property.  These are the pictures from the back yard of the building.  It was odd to see so much beauty right outside the doors.  We talked about how perfect a play ground would be under some of the shade trees.  i am sure the kids would love spending some time outside...but alas...they are inside most of their days.

 Next we went to a large supermarket to buy diapers.  We returned with them during our afternoon visit.  Here is Grace with the 15 boxes of diapers we purchased.  (thank you all for your donations to go toward diapers, due to the nature of the climate we found at the orphanage we are going to use the rest of your donations to pay for nurses to come into the orphanage from the nearby hospital.)

In order for the diapers to be accepted we had to present our receipt from the store and then they drew up some paperwork which I had to sign in QUADRUPLET!!  HOLY MOLY, you can drop off a child to them and fill out less paperwork!!!! (sadly)  It felt as if they really didn't want our help at this point.  They had refused our formula because we could present them with "documentation of origin" or a receipt and here dropping off the diapers was also a very difficult experience.  But we are grateful they accepted and hopeful they will use them.  It also allowed me to have a pretty interesting conversation with the interim director of the orphanage.  When he thanked me for the donation I was able to say your welcome through tears and tell him how much we love these children and then it opened us up into a long question and answer time about the future of the orphanage.  I did feel like things might improve after talking to him....but it is hard to say.  He told me that he knows adults with Down's syndrome and that they are living full lives and have very pleasant dispositions and we both agreed that the children in this orphanage have been robbed of that chance.  I hope we can all pray for someone to take over this orphanage that shares the same sentiments.

Meanwhile, Grace and Sam were having a WONDERFUL visit down stairs.  you can read more about that on Grace's blog.  But I must say the transformation of Sam has been amazing to see...she was playing so much and inviting affection it was really beautiful.

After we left Grace and I went out to dinner.  I was able to complete my hilarious typo collection with this gem:  (i might have mentioned before but here is the proof)

read the chicken Formaggio description.

Then we went on a walk.  Grace wanted to see some actual bulgarian neighborhoods....she promised to buy me ice cream so I went :)  (i would have went anyway!)  Fortunately I have a nose for these things and I was able to get us into a neighborhood in just a few blocks!  I didn't get great pictures of the neighborhood but i did finally get a nice shot of a "soviet" car!  I have really liked seeing these cars around...I think they are cute.  I also got a picture of a station wagon one...no jeep one yet.  maybe tomorrow!

And that my friend was our last full day in Pleven!  Tomorrow is our tearful good bye.. pray for us during this time and for our safe travels home.  And one last good prayer for the formula we are taking to the hospital.

How do you save just one?

I was looking on Reece's rainbow last night and thinking the need is so great for adoptive parents.  How and why are their so many orphans in the world?  Reece's Rainbow just holds a very SMALL selection of kids with disabilities and there are even more out their that don't have disabilities.  I get so overwhelmed...even if you try to limit it, it is hard to chose 1 child and leave another.  I suppose that is why there are so many families adopting multiple children at once.  Tom, the other american that is visiting right now is adopting 3 from Pleven.  (We have enjoyed getting to know his boys during our visits with Sam.)

I left the orphanage today in tears.  I was able to quickly stuff them down, as I am good at that, but I can tell even if I try to hold it together I am breaking inside.  Why is it like this?  How can this be happening? What can anyone do?  My co-worker has reminded me multiple times that the Lord is so much bigger than even this life...and there is a hope beyond.  So that perhaps if a child here on earth has a life short and sad in an orphanage that in heaven, in the world beyond they will be healed, restored and loved.  Man, do I hope they don't remember it here on earth once they are there.

Part of me wants to just go into the places I am not supposed to be.  Because in reality I don't really know if the higher ups are even around enough to stop me.  During our afternoon visits there are only Babas around.  But Grace is concerned that they will do something to Sam if we don't respect their boundaries.  I was so hopeful that I would be able to touch and love as many kids as I could but I can't.  All this to say, I hope that I am doing as much as I can.  I just can't help but feeling like it is not enough but that enough could never be done!  I think if 30 americans with hearts for children could move over here and somehow get jobs in the orphanage that COULD be a start.  But what really has to happen here is a culture change, a shift in how children are seen and treated, and that is why you just need people on the staff with a different heart.  The Babas are great at getting the kids out of their cribs for a time but I don't think that they really know how to fully engage this kids.  We hear word of kids taking classes, and I wonder what kind of professionals teach these classes?  There is definitely a need there.  There is a need for rehab here, for physical therapy for pretty much each kid.  And really above all else someone needs to come in and take over the menus and the food.  Okay so we need way more than just 30 Americans....we need way more than money to buy diapers and formula (especially if they don't take it GRRRRR)  I just have to remind myself that SOME kids are being rescued.

okay I am going to stop with that...and just add some cute pictures...these are some kids that are being rescued:

tom's boys from left jacob(7), Moses (7) and Noah (9)

sam in front

jacob (7) and Moses (7)

sam age 7

                     

culture to lighten the mood

so as any traveler knows, eating on the road can be a quite the experience.  Around here it is very hard for us because we can't read the language at all.  Fortunately some of the restaurants have english menus and add humor and excitement to our meals they are often poorly translated!  Below are a few that I found funny.  

"Broken (shaken) chicken meat/ chicken CHEST, onion, white WHINE."

I ate the "pie with chicken and it was pretty good.  Grace had to assure me a few times before I ordered that chicken "chest" did in fact mean chicken "breast".  I sure am glad she was right.

this one is hard to see "cheese in parchment", "Pane cheese", "pane yellow cheese" and "appetizing potatoes"

In a few spots they list things on "hot plate".  I am not for sure what they are getting at...do they want us to know the plate will be pre-warmed for us???

I took this picture for the "FILLER of Pangasius in PARCHMENT".  does anyone know what they were trying to say here????  I don't really want to eat filler myself...I guess this filler is wrapped in paper?

Grace ate the Caprese salad and loved it.  We both steered clear of the Salad "amphibian"...I guess they thought amphibian referred to the "tunny fish"

So what do you think the chicken leg could be filled with?  is it filled with the livers, walnut onion and mushrooms?  I guess I hope it is.  I also wondered about this "chicken broken meat in folio".  They really like to wrap stuff in paper products around here.  I do like the honesty of telling us the cheese is processed though. :)

above was our dessert from lunch.  We had kind of a rough lunch today as the restaurant didn't have an english menu we had to trust our waiter who fancies himself an english speaker...which he is not.  After he "translated" the options we still weren't sure what we ordered.  We didn't eat much of our meal and then he brought out the dessert on the house so we could try MACARONI as a dessert item.  I didn't mind it so I ate as much of mine and Grace's as I could :)  It was cold, and had large shell shaped noodles mixed in some kind of pudding???  The powered sugar on top was my favorite part.

I don't know if I will be able to go back for a picture or not, but we ate at a wonderful restaurant that had some of these same translation problems.  On one of the descriptions they must have given up because at the end it just said, "and something else"  We laughed pretty hard at that one....we didn't order it. :)

faith in the unseen redemption

It has been a hard few days.  I have struggled on the roller coaster of faith and sight.  For me it was faith that things are as bad as they have been reported in the face of so many people making excuses and saying things are exaggerated and telling us kids go to classes and that they are going to be fed.  When in fact, we are visiting 3 seven year olds and a nine year old with weights ranging from 18 to 26 pounds.  I held a 7 year old today like I would a 1 year old...that is how small he is.  We can't see their rooms, we can't see what they are feeding them, we haven't seen their butts.  Sam doesn't seem like a skeleton yet she is not the size of a 7 year old. (she wears a 3T)  I think when you are in the midst of a horribly dire situation for long enough you can begin to lie to yourself.  Like the people in the orphanage have lied to themselves.  That down's kids can't grow, that they feed the kids well, that the down's causes these institutional ticks, that they have done right by these children and finally that NOTHING else can be done.

It is hard...I think lies are contagious.  I began to doubt myself, God and that the situation could be bettered.  Today we brought formula to the orphanage and then left with it again.  I will be honest i have lost some faith that the higher ups want the kids to get better more than they want to follow rules or make sure they can save face.  There is no face to save at this point.  It is un-nerving to transport pounds and pounds of a lifesaving substance around, moving it place to place and never being able to get it to those who need it.  It is like the left over food you throw in the trash....you can't send it to the starving kids in the world.  Only it is more annoying than that....it is like the starving kids are in the other room.  There is a door between you, and a man in a uniform between you telling you....NO, you can't give this starving kid food, what if it is poisoned?....better to let him starve.

I am praying for redemption.  It would be nice if it was a redemption I could see.  But I would settle I suppose for the faith in a long term redemption.  For the faith that the evil that has been done to the kids will be made into good.

We are hopeful we will be able to drop the formula off at the hospital and that they will use it for the 30 Pleven kids that are currently there.  We also hope that maybe the nurses will someday sneak it in to some others :)

Pray for us as the orphanage seems darker and darker.  The room we meet in smaller and smaller and the plight of the children more dire.

the inside

They seem to only be allowing us in one room in the orphanage.  We really wanted to be able to walk around and see where the kids sleep and perhaps touch children that don't get any attention.  yesterday we were able to see a few other kids as the Babas walked them by our rooms, however most of those kids are ones that are being adopted.  While we LOVE the chance to check up on them so that Grace can give their parent's reports it is hard knowing that there are children being hidden within.

The reason given to us for not being allowed to go in when we know a few americans went all over the orphanage on another visit was that the old director should have been preventing that from happening.  The new director is not allowing us to go anywhere or take any pictures of kids that are not ours, which we are honoring.  This is hard though.  Please pray that when we ask about where Sam sleeps that we will get some answers and perhaps an opportunity to visit her crib.

I was listening to patty griffin's song "to the top of the world" last night.  While the song is not about orphans it is about some sort of neglect/abuse that altered a person's life.  Some of the lines are written below and they struck me in regards to the plight of these children.  That their voices may never be heard, that their gifts may never be developed, that the neglect has broken them.  And while through adoption they can be taken "to the top of the world" for many of them the damage of abuse with in the first 2 years of their life will live with them forever.  Kids that were placed in this orphanage that only had 1 ailment could have lived very full lives, they could have showed the world what they had to offer...but their treatment, the starvation and the lack of love and care has left them with much more severe issues.

The song is beautiful, sorrowful and Erie but beautiful.

There's a whole lot of singing
That's never gonna be heard
Disappearing every day
Without so much as a word
Somehow

I think I broke the wings
Off that little songbird
she's never gonna fly
To the top of the world
Now
To the top of the world

Cause everyone's singing
We just wanna be heard
Disappearing every day
Without so much as a word
Somehow

Gonna grab a hold
Off that little songbird
And take her for a ride
To the top of the world
now
To the top of the world

I am grateful that Sam has been placed in Grace's life.  She will soar to the top of the world with Grace.  We can see already how much potential, beauty and love is inside her.  I can't wait for her to get to break free of these chains of institutional bondage and be freed by Jesus' love through Grace.

 

the first visit

It is quite outside in the morning which is odd since the nights are so loud.  The loud stray dog bark-a-thon has been replaced by sweetly singing birds and squawking seagulls.  It seems the joy-veal population of Bulgarians have not emerged from their homes yet to walk the streets laughing and boisterously speaking to one another.
I regret not being able to post yesterday to update you all, however we opted for the most important things to get done and once those things happened it was after midnight here.  Grace was able to update her blog and add pictures and videos of Sam.  If you haven't watched them yet you need to!!  I got to see my son yesterday as well via skype...he waved at me and gave me a kiss!

As I write it is 6:48am on Tuesday morning.  Yesterday we got to visit the orphanage for the first time.  We took a lot of really deep breathes before we went in as we had no idea what we would find there.  Being in a country where you can't understand the language or read it you kind of learn to go on feel, it felt very intense.  Staff walked in and out, our translator told us to sit in the entryway because it could be a moment before they were ready to take us in but none of us wanted to sit.  Even following a staff member to the elevator seemed confusing,  I will talk more about the elevators in this country later!!!  We were put in a very small room, it was the four of us, Grace and I, the translator and another father who is adopting 3 boys from this orphanage.  As we were waiting nervously for them to bring the children in, one of the kids Grace recognized was zooming by on a wheely thing.  We called his name and it was confirmed by the woman following him around.  I began getting his attention and taking pictures and that was when the climate got even more intense. Several staff people appeared out of no where speaking loudly and with agitated motions...then the words that we dreaded, no pictures.  Our translator told us we couldn't take any pictures of this video.  all my dreams of capturing Graces first moments with this child flew out the window. HOWEVER i will tell you, she glowed like a mother holding her infant for the first time after a 30 hour labor.  The joy was written all over her, she just kept saying over and over again, "she is perfect, Anna, she is perfect!"  And she is.

Grace had prepared herself for the worst and went into this meeting not expecting too much.  And perhaps that is why our socks where blown off.  Sam is so expressive and she plays with Grace so well.  They share a language of smiles and laughs!!  Our lawyer fixed our problem and by the second visit yesterday we were able to take pictures and shoot video.  I filled up the whole memory card on that visit!!!  Our afternoon visit was amazing, the tense staff had disappeared and in their place were the sweetest women in the world.  The babas began parading by our room to say hello carrying kids being adopted by other moms in the states.  These babas were dedicated women, in fact later that day we watched a video of one of them giving up a child who was going home to America with his adopted family and you could hear her sobbing as she let him go.  A few of the kids we saw were ones we were hoping to check on so this was a huge blessing.  I think they were waiting for me to take pictures but after our battle I wasn't going to risk taking pictures of other people's kids :(.

We are hopeful for some awesome visits today.  I am going to try to upload my videos of Grace's before and after interviews but I won't be able to imbed them in this blog as it could take a while for them to load.  From the heart of Bulgaria I write you....pray for us, pray for these kids, pray for the 3 boys being adopted by the other american here.  Two of them are very sick and one of them is VERY small....I am still shocked by their sizes....it is hard to take.  The changes in administration should be helping pray that they are!!!!  Also pray that Grace and I will be able to sleep, mostly Grace while I got in 5-6 hours she only had about 2 and in order to turn herself around she will have to have a long day with no naps today!!!

love you all and miss you.