All the Children of the World

Jesus loves the little children,  

all the children of the world,  

red, brown, yellow, black and white,

they are precious in His sight.

Jesus Loves the little children of the world.

Normally, on Sundays,  I post about one of our children that we’ve taken in. I love sharing their stories with you and remembering the times they came to be with us and then how far they’ve come.

We are not set up as an adoption home and even when the laws in Zambia become more adoption friendly (they’re a bit confusing at the moment), we are still focusing more on raising children that will be Godly men and women who can help to lead their own nation.

Having said that we are not closing the door to any possibilities the Lord may have to place children with a specific family should that be the way He moves. As always we try to stay open to what God might have in store for our (& our little ones’) futures.

I feel sad when I read or hear about governments and organizations putting pride and politics before children’s welfare.

I’ve been following the blog of the Livesay family in Haiti and their undying devotion to the rescue efforts in the land they love and call home. She wrote a post about this very thing. I am copying it below and have included the link so you can see more of their wonderful work.

No place for politics

Something very odd went down with unicef yesterday. We were instructed in writing to pick up patients from the Comfort ship. When our driver got there to get the people there were unicef vehicles taking them to some camp. The unicef folks were not talking, they were just large and in charge. I'd love to believe somebody just got their wires crossed, but I'm not so sure. Something smelled wrong about it. The Comfort ship went to the work of getting us patient names, details, lists and a time to come get them. Clearly they were unaware of what was about to happen.

The problem is, giant worldwide organizations have power, and they have policies. Giant organizations are so giant that they cannot see the forest for the trees and they cannot see the individual person with the individual situation. We all know power corrupts. The unicef we're seeing is not as interested in putting people/children first as it is in setting policy, precedent, and moving forward its own political agenda. I've watched people get up in arms and say that it is wrong to not support this long-standing and "worthy" organization. I recognize that will likely happen again here. We can easily agree to disagree if need be.

We're simply stating that the policies and procedures are a long way off from meeting real people where they are. (And things are not what they appear to be. Not at all.) The anti-adoption rhetoric is maddening. Kids abandoned to an orphanage by their birth parent PRE earthquake are now being held in Haiti thanks to pressure placed on the Haitian government by the giant and powerful unicef. It is asinine and lacks all logic.

We are all for legal, careful, smart adoption. None of us want to see children taken from a birthparent that wants to raise them. That would be a terrible thing. The fact is, unicef is openly anti-international-adoption and what is happening now is nothing more than political grand-staning and a massive power trip. And all at the expense of children with waiting and approved families abroad.

For more thoughts and a specific story, read this.

Large powerful organizations with money can "encourage" and "convince" and put the pressure on ... and a government in crisis will bend to the will of a single powerful organization.

Meanwhile, children and people in crisis are not being served, cared for, or respected.

Haiti is in the news right now and so we are hearing more about their plight but this kind of thing goes on all over the world.

We have friends who were missionaries to Russia and they saw the same thing years ago where because of national pride or rather the fear of losing it, the officials chose to leave children in institutions which were not caring for them properly rather than allow them to go to good homes which happened to be in another country.

If you feel it's the right thing to do, please read more about this by following the link in the story above and write to those in power (addresses and names are included) and help to change to world for those children.

At the very least, please pray for all the children in the world who are lonely and suffering. Pray that their needs are met and that God works in the lives of those around them.

                                 Thank you!