Given away

Catarina is ten. She has an older sister and three younger siblings, but she is the only one in the Placement centre (a placement centre is somewhere for orphans, bad kids whose parents can’t handle them and extremely poor kids). And she doesn’t know why. It’s certainly not bad behaviour because from what we have seen she doesn’t have a bad bone in her body. She’s an adorable child and every one here has fallen in love with her.

But she has a deep sadness. She openly admits that she has no idea why her family “gave her away”. I can’t imagine why either. When she was gently questioned about it last night at dinner her beautiful big eyes just filled up with tears. She hardly spoke the rest of the evening. In fact, she hardly speaks at all. She has obviously withdrawn into her own little world where she thinks she can’t get hurt so much. But she hungers for touch, a hug, to hold your hand, or just for a smile. She longs to be loved.

As always you can’t help but think of your own kids. What damage would it do to Daniel, my nine year old, if we simply chose to give him away? It would completely devastate him and emotionally scar him for life. That’s the reality for thousands of kids in Romania. EU membership wont heal these scars. It will take generations.

But that is the problem with the institutions here. They provide the basics, but from our years of observing here, they rarely love the kids. That’s why we, as followers of Jesus, are magnetic. We should radiate love. And thankfully out here we do.

I watched Linzi as she held Catarina last night. It did almost as much good for Linzi to be able to give love, real unselfish love, as for Catarina to receive it. If we could only personalize this experience for people at home, Romanian children would cease to be just a request for money. They would become Catarina. And our hearts would break.