orphans

We Become Our Parents

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fatherhoodWith all the mass shootings lately, people are quick to express opinions on gun control and gun regulations. As horrific as the mass shootings are, they are a symptom of a much larger problem. The mental health of shooters often comes up, in the vast majority of the cases, the shooters have used some type of behavioral medication. The one common thread through almost every shooter’s background is the lack of a strong male figure in their lives. Dad was not there.

It’s human nature to emulate the people who are closest to us. Whether we want to or not, we take on the attitudes and characteristics of the people with whom we spend the most time. As much as our friends influence us, the people who care for us when we are in our formative years ultimately have the most significant impact on our lives. 

The people parenting us when we are very young are the people who determine who we become. These are the people we want to make proud, and we remember at key moments in our lives. They shape how we approach experiences and relationships. Our parents shape our reactions to the blessings and challenges that we encounter. Although change is always possible, it gets harder to change our basic personality as we get older, the patterns have been set. The early examples in our lives manifest themselves later on, whether we want them to or not.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. 
Proverbs 22:6

Over the last few years, while I wasn’t paying attention, I turned into my dad. While I was growing up, “consistent” is the word that would best describe him. He worked the same job for years, home by 5:10, dinner at 5:15, recliner and evening news at 6:00. We were at church EVERY Sunday at 8 am. As my dad aged and then retired, he started looking after his health more, focused more on gardening, and his woodworking (he was a true artist). My life pretty much mirrors this, although I’m not the level of woodworker he was. I’ve kept the same schedule every day for years. In the last few years, I’ve gotten more into gardening, and I’ve set up a wood-shop. As I was arranging my tools recently, I realized again how much I miss my dad and how much I’ve turned into him. Those generational examples can be broken, but it’s complicated. We generally become the people who raise us. I was blessed with an incredible dad, but what about children without that father figure in their lives?

Running a large orphanage, or even being involved in orphan care, you spend a lot of time thinking about parenthood, and the impact it has on a child. Too often long term childcare situations, whether it be foster care or orphanages, focus on the basics. This is entirely understandable, there is a hierarchy of needs, and we need to have the basics covered. Food, shelter, medical needs, education, etc. are all critical in raising children. These basics will keep a child alive, but do they create emotionally healthy adults? Children will not mature in a healthy way without consistent positive examples that they can learn from, and emulate, as they grow into adulthood.

Many orphanages worldwide operate like most families in that they need to focus on the basics first. Out of necessity, anything beyond the basics of keeping children alive doesn’t happen often. In families, the hope is that by default, one or two reliable parental figures are there to provide an example, a pattern to follow in life. In orphanages and long term care situations, the father figure can be elusive. No child belongs in a system, but there are children in long-term care situations in almost every culture in the world. How do we do better? How do we provide more than the basics to keep them alive?

Although I’m a huge advocate of short-term missions, short-term teams do almost nothing to provide long term examples for the children who need it. What short-term mission teams do offer, is the support the long-term staff and missionaries need to stay the course, to remain in the child’s life for the long-term. Orphanage staff need the support and encouragement of teams and individuals behind them and praying for them.

If you work in orphan care, please know your work matters. I know from experience, there are many days you ask yourself why you’re doing what you do, and if it makes a difference. It does. You won’t reach every child; you won’t always have the opportunity to touch a child’s life long term. But when it works, it can make all the difference in a child’s life. Please keep it up; it’s worth it. You might be the only example a child has to model their life after. Do it well.

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Where Do Babies Come From?

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pexels-photo-2760338Part of the job when running a large orphanage is answering a LOT of questions from people you meet. There is something about orphan care that brings out the curiosity in just about anyone. People hear stories or make assumptions about this type of work all the time. Don’t you get government funding? (No) Do you handle a lot of adoptions? (No) Do you ever get threatened by family members? (No) Can you use my old clothing? (Maybe) The questions seem to come from anyone we meet. We get it; there is something about orphan care that affects people at a different level than your average job. No offense to accountants or plumbers, but these jobs, while needed, don’t inspire deep, life-altering questions too often. 

There’s a reason almost every superhero is an orphan: Batman, Superman, Spiderman, etc. There is just something about the story of a child alone in the world that brings up emotions and reactions in anyone. It’s part of our collective human experience to be drawn to the orphan story.

One of the top five questions we get is, “Where do the children come from?” I sometimes respond with, “Soooo, you’re asking me where babies come from?” This usually gets an awkward laugh. I find a little humor helps to soften the harsh realities of what we do. The question of why children wind up in orphanages is never pleasant. This is complicated work. When you’re dealing with young children, often coming from traumatic circumstances, the realities are not what most people want to think about.

The question of why children come to an orphanage is, like any social work, profoundly complicated. Every case is different and tragic. The family unit is the ideal and ordained place for a child to be. No child belongs in a system. Unfortunately, we live in a deeply broken world made up of people who are frequently struggling with complicated and deep issues. Some people, unfortunately, should never have children or should never be let near children. With our home, most of our children are referred to us by Mexico’s version of Child Protective Service (DIF). Why they are brought to our home varies wildly.

The first assumption from people is that the many children in our home are orphans. The truth is, actual orphans, where both parents have died and there is no extended family to step in, are pretty rare. Unless you’re dealing with AIDS, war, or some catastrophic natural event, the odds of both parents of a young child dying are pretty slim. Children wind up in orphanages for much darker and varied reasons. I know that sounds odd: darker than dead parents? The truth is, this is a dark and sad world in which we live. The short answer to why children are in orphanages is: sin.

Parents unavailable to care for a child is one reason children are placed in orphanages or foster care. They might care about their child but are dealing with their own issues: prison, re-hab, etc. Often they can barely care for themselves, much less small children who need loving attention. They might be released from prison or overcome their addictions, but it takes time if it happens at all. These children need a safe place to wait and see if their parents ever recover.

Some children wind up in orphanages due to severe neglect or abuse. After twenty-five years in this line of work, you can imagine the nightmarish stories we’ve seen. Acts of neglect and abuse cut across all social and economic situations. There are just a lot of profoundly messed up people in this world. Unfortunately, broken people frequently take out their issue on the most vulnerable members of society, children. Many children wind up in orphanages coming directly from some horrific situations.

Oddly, the parents of children in our home I appreciate most are the ones who abandon their children. Dropping off infants in hospitals or other areas, or bringing older children directly to organizations like ours, people sometimes just leave their children. At least in the majority of cases, these people are self-aware enough to know that they would make horrible parents or can not give their child what they need. In most cases, they want what is best for their child, and they know they cannot provide that.

Some people assume that children wind up in orphanages due to financial hardship. In our experience, this is actually pretty rare. If we do believe it’s a straight economic issue, we will do everything in our power to keep those families together.

As you can see, why children come to an orphanage is a complicated question. The only constant is that it should never happen. No child belongs in a system or institution. Unfortunately, in every country in the world, children are born into circumstances that require long-term care where a family is not in the picture. Orphans are near to the heart of God, and we as a church and a society need to do better when it comes to orphan care.

Everyone knows where babies come from. The complicated question is, what do you do with them once they arrive?

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Human Sausage

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pexels-photo-1098769A well worn saying claims that if you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made. When you see what goes into making some things, it can really spoil the enjoyment. The same should be said about the complexities of trying to help some children at risk. Most people have no idea how frustratingly difficult kindness can sometimes be. What is a beautiful, loving, and positive thing on the outside, is grinding and painful once you see what goes on in the background.

I’m aware of, or involved with, a few examples of bureaucratic quagmire that are currently taking place in order for good people to help children in need. There obviously needs to be laws in place to guide and protect children at risk, but what happens when those children, through no fault of their own, land just outside of the parameters of the laws created to protect them in the first place?

There are two couples that I’m aware of that have jumped through ridiculous hoops and accomplished something that is very rare. Two different American couples have adopted children in Mexico, including one boy with special needs. There were lengthy, expensive, complicated procedures, interviews, background checks, etc. It’s not unlike adopting in the US, but both these couples accomplished something everyone said was impossible. These children have been legally adopted; in the eyes of the law, they are the children of these two adoptive families. After this complicated and frustrating process is when the bureaucracy kind of caves in on itself.

Although these children have been adopted, they are not US citizens. They can not legally enter the US. Everyone wants to help them, but this situation is so rare there is no system in place on the US side to recognize them as adopted. These families are stuck in a weird place not being able to bring their own children home. There is just no path set up for visas in this situation, no forms to fill out, no appeal process, this falls JUST outside the system. Even professional US immigration attorneys are at a loss. Good people are doing great things who are getting ground up in the system designed to help. Human Sausage.

The next example is even more complicated; Two sweet young sisters, one fourteen, one fifteen, are currently in Tijuana. One of them is pregnant through assault. They escaped abuse in their home country and traveled across Mexico alone with many of the migrants hoping for a better life in the US. They are now living in a crowded migrant center in Tijuana. Many people in our area want to help them but are stuck in a bureaucratic maze. Several local orphanages wish to take them in and help them, but technically they are not in Mexico legally, so helping these girls puts the orphanage licensing at risk. The local child protective service wants to help them but since there is no paperwork the government workers don’t know what to do, and they are not chartered to help foreign children. Politicians and highly placed government workers from both the US and Mexico are aware of the girls’ situation but have been unable to find a way through the dozen agencies involved in “protecting” these girls. The girls have shelter, they are being fed, but none of it is legal. A situation has come up where these girls fall JUST outside the system designed to help the children who fall through the cracks of society. Human Sausage.

Talk to anyone who works in foster-care in the US. You will generally find good people doing their best to help children, often handcuffed and frustrated by a mountain of bureaucratic roadblocks that grow larger every month. Many children are helped; some fall through the cracks. Human sausage being ground up by the system.

The point of this rambling complaint is to encourage you to support those who battle the system every day to help the children who society has left behind. Until you’re in the middle of working to help children, you have no idea how soul-crushing it can be some days.

The second point of this ramble is, strangely enough, meant to encourage those who are in the middle of these types of frustrating circumstance. Please know you are not alone. What you’re doing is worth the headaches, the lost sleep, the skipped vacations used to help others who’ve fallen through every last safety net society has in place. Keep it up; it matters.

If you can get past the idea of what goes into the making of sausage, you know how enjoyable and unrecognizable the end product can be. All of the grinding, at the end of the day, changes lives. Keep it up.

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What About Dad?

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50984016_10216681108634208_1859912021047246848_o.jpgFather, dad, pops, whatever word you use for the male parent in your life, it can bring up deep and complicated emotions. Our earthly father, and our relationship with him, for good or bad, will influence us for our entire lives. When you’re dealing with an orphaned or abandoned child, this can be profoundly complicated. Where does their security, and definition of fatherhood, come from?

It’s the rare movie scene that causes almost every male to tear up, the end of Field of Dreams is one of those scenes. When Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) plays catch with his dad as the sun sets it will squeeze a tear out of almost any man. That moment of healing between a father and son, the symbolic act of the “catch” as something is passed between them is powerful. There is just something about the relationship we have with our father that is universal. It’s not always great. Eventually, we realize that our parents are just flawed individuals like everyone else, but that relationship will brand us and follow us. It is reflected in the way we live out our lives, and how we parent our own children.

My wife and I were blessed with great fathers; men who lived as faithful providers, good examples, and loving husbands. They both lived by a defined moral compass. Although we’ve both lost our fathers over the last few years, their influence remains and continues to guide us. There are many things I remember fondly about my dad. He lived in a precise and consistent way: same job his whole adult life, ate dinner at the same time every night followed by the evening news, we were at church EVERY Sunday in the same pew. His temperament never changed; he was a rock. The worst I ever heard him cuss was the occasional “ah hell.” He gave me my love of Steinbeck novels, fine woodworking, and classical music. He made me who I am and I miss him deeply.

For any of us, our relationship with our earthly father is intertwined and woven together with our image of who our Heavenly Father is. Grace, acceptance, stability, discipline, love, all of the emotions and attributes we believe about our God are viewed through a window tinted by the image of our earthly father. Our heavenly Father is perfect; our earthly fathers are flawed. For many people, believing in a perfect Father after being abandoned or abused by their earthly father takes many years of healing, if it happens at all.

Restoring the image of a healthy father figure is essential to the long-term healing of a child who has been orphaned or abandoned. This restoration does not happen over-night, and it needs to been done with great care. Whether you’re caring for a child in an orphanage, one in foster care, or one you’ve adopted, this healing of the father image needs to happen if the child is ever going to grow into a healthy adult. It’s also critical if a child is going to have a healthy image of who God is.

If a child, especially a male child, does not have a male showing what a healthy person is, they will seek out whatever examples they can to see how to live their lives. I’ve seen this happen to young men who are raised in poorly run orphanages. They leave home and have no history of a strong male example to draw from as they make life decisions. How to act as a man of God, how to treat women with respect, how to walk with dignity. They spend much of their lives approaching life, and relationships, in a broken way. Their marriages fail, their faith never matures, and they’re left with finding their way in life from an unhealthy stew of input from wherever they can find it.

I do not believe the healing of the father image happens in counseling or “quality time,” although both of these things play a part. Healing takes time. A lot of time. Years of consistent healthy male examples in the life of a child. A child needs to watch healthy men of God living out their lives on a day to day basis. They need to watch healthy decisions, reactions, and actions take place for many years for the healing to take place. By seeing a solid male in action, showing grace, stability, guidance, love, and acceptance, a child can begin to understand who God is. Much more than we can ever realize, although we are flawed, we represent who God is to our children. We need to truly take on the image of Christ if we are to have a hand in the healing of broken children.

A few days ago, I was at a BBQ with several of the orphaned children (now adults) who were raised in our home. Midway through the party, I watched as a great young man, now married with three children, patiently and slowly showed his attentive eight-year-old son the proper way to season and grill steak. This might seem like a simple act, but I watched this man represent what it means to father someone, and show the patient guiding hand that our heavenly Father represents (The steak was pretty good also).

If you’re caring for orphaned or abandoned children stay the course. Healing doesn’t happen quickly. Continue to live a life representing who our Heavenly Father is. You are being watched more than you realize, they will follow your example.

The above photo is of Ramon Reid and his son. Ramon knows what putting fatherhood into action is all about. We need more men like Ramon in this world.

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