Obviously, the last few weeks have been new and scary for everyone. The lock-downs, the businesses closing, and the quarantining are where everyone is focused (from a safe distance). One of the countless reactions has been anger at all of the celebrities and professional athletes that could get tested for COVID-19 while so many others couldn’t. They’re connected and have the resources most of us can only look at from afar. We sit and imagine what it would be like to live like them. They are the powerful 1% everyone talks about. While you might not think about it, if you’re reading this, you’re probably in the 1%. Continue reading
poverty
Random Affection in Orphanages
One of the realities of orphan care is that everybody considers themselves an authority. Just like parenting styles in a traditional family, opinions on orphanage styles tend to shift frequently on how to “do it better.” These opinions change depending on what’s trending in any given year. In the last few years, there’s been a lot written on the potentially harmful effects of too many visitors on the children in an orphanage. After working full-time in orphan care for over 25 years, I could not disagree more.
The current theory states that having visitors in orphanages on a regular basis leads to attachment disorder problems later in life because the children are bonding with random, different strangers every week. In my experience, children raised in dysfunctional orphanages will have a wide range of emotional problems later in life, just as anyone raised in a dysfunctional family. If the children are bonding with random strangers every week, this means there are many underlying problems in the orphanage already. The bonding issue is just a symptom.
Let’s look at two scenarios:
Scenario 1) In our orphanage, we have more visitors than almost any orphanage in the world. In a typical year, we host around 280 groups and have other “drop by” visitors on a regular basis. We enjoy hosting the groups, we enjoy leading them into service and short-term missions, and we believe when well-managed, these visits are healthy for everyone. So how do we avoid the random attachment? First, we have reliable, consistent staff and plenty of them. Our children do bond with adults, but it’s with consistent adults in their lives. We have an excellent child to staff ratios (about 4 to 1) and minimal staff turnover. Second, although we have a tremendous amount of visitors we intentionally limit the time they have with our children. We limit the visiting hours with our infants and toddlers, but more importantly, we encourage all of our groups to stay with us but travel out daily to serve in the community or with other ministries in the area. Our children see the “visitors” as just that, visitors dropping by to see our family. The majority of children who grow up in our home go on to have healthy marriages and families. In spite of all the visitors, most of our children turn out okay.
Scenario 2) In an orphanage that is understaffed and overcrowded, the children will seek random affection from any visitor that comes through. You can see this when you first arrive in a home. If children above the age of five are running over to hang on you and ask to be held, they’re starved for affection. A normal, well-adjusted 10-year-old doesn’t just walk up to a random stranger seeking physical contact; this is a symptom of much deeper issues in an orphanage. The children are not bonding with the staff and are severely lacking affection. They WILL have problems bonding later in life without a tremendous amount of healing. Most children raised in poorly run orphanages eventually produce children that wind up back in the system and have a tough time with healthy relationships. (Just like too many children from foster care.)
So how does someone, or a mission team, respond to these two examples? If you’re dealing with a healthy orphanage, one that has well-adjusted kids and is well run, continue to back their work. Find out what their needs are and keep supporting a healthy situation. Help them to continue to provide what their children need.
If you’re working with a home that’s not so great, it gets complicated quickly. A few years ago, we were helping an orphanage near us that was a pit. The orphanage was overcrowded, filthy, and the children were deeply starved for affection. We were praying for a change in that home but did not have a lot of hope with the current management. With eyes wide open to the situation, we continued to send teams to that orphanage on day trips. The teams would clean, prepare meals, and spend time with the children in need of attention. I would encourage the teams by telling them, “This home will probably never change, but for one memorable day, those children can know someone cares about them.” With these “hit and run” trips, it was far from perfect, but it was giving these children something.
Everyone knows that eating junk food all the time makes for a lousy diet. In a perfect world, we would all have access to regular, healthy, balanced meals. If someone is starving, the standards drop, and junk food is better than no food. If a child was starving, and all we had to give them was a candy bar, that candy bar would mean the world to them. Long term, you would hope that the situation would change, but I don’t think anyone would withhold the candy bar because it’s not the ideal, healthy option. “Junk food” affection, when it’s the only real option, is better than no affection at all. People not visiting an orphanage to avoid this attachment and bonding problem does not suddenly make healthy bonding occur if the orphanage is understaffed and poorly run.
Caring for orphaned and abandoned children is obviously a complicated issue. It’s an issue that has been around for thousands of years and will not be going away soon. To believe that not visiting orphanages will help the situation is like saying not providing services and meals to homeless will end the homeless situation across America. I wish orphanages didn’t exist, but if they have to exist, they should be great, and they need our help.
Please, continue to follow the fundamental teaching of our Christian faith in regards to orphan care:
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27
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I Hate Orphanages
I wish orphanages didn’t exist. A child in an orphanage means the enemy has won a battle, a battle to break a child and parent bond or destroy a family. Orphaned and abandoned children exist because we live in a broken world. I wish we didn’t need the foster care system and I hate orphanages, but if these types of homes have to exist, they should be GREAT.
People frequently ask me “why does a child wind up in an orphanage?” There are a lot of misconceptions about this; most people assume all kids in orphanages are “orphans” who have no living family. The short answer to why most kids are in orphanages is “sin.” Severe abuse, neglect, abandonment, substance abuse by the parents, etc. are all results of flawed people who have fallen into deep sin. Some people should just never have kids. Unless you’re dealing with AIDS, war or severe natural disaster, true orphans where both parents have died are kind of hard to find. Frequently, a parent might still be around, but for many reasons, they just can’t or won’t care for their child or have chosen to abandon their child or children. In any country, you can read stories every week of babies left at hospitals, fire stations, or in trash cans. Today, in many countries, there are thousands of children that are sold into slavery every year. We live in a deeply broken, profoundly messed up world.
Some people believe orphanages break up families to fill their dorms; this does happen in some cases, but less than you might think. There is an assumption that many children are in homes worldwide due to poverty, this happens also, but most of the time, there are other, deeper underlying issues. In most cases, it’s not easy to say what’s best for a child: A marginally abusive/neglectful situation or an orphanage?
In our home, as in any healthy ministry, we do everything we can to keep families together if it’s truly in the best interest of the child. The family is the ideal model, and every child deserves a healthy family. Every child needs the love, acceptance, and loving guidance of their parents. If a parent needs short term help, counseling, etc. to keep the family together in a healthy situation, that should always be the first choice. If there is some extended family that can help that’s an excellent second choice. Sometimes all that’s needed is daycare to keep a family together so the parent can work and still care for their children.
Unfortunately, sometimes, it really is in the best interest of the child to break up the family. You can imagine some of the horrific stories of the children in our care. We had a five-year-old brought to us after the stepdad held him against a hot stove for wetting the bed. We had a two-year-old dropped off late one night with bruises over much of his body and a broken leg after the mom lashed out in a drunken rage. We took in a girl who had just turned fourteen and was pregnant after being raped by her stepdad. (he is now in prison) These types of stories are much too common. Even the most ardent defenders of the family would be hard pressed to defend keeping some families together.
A well-meaning, well-educated individual once passionately shared with me that orphanages are a broken system and that they should all close down. I agree that it’s a broken system, but saying all orphanages should be closed is like saying the health care system in the US is broken so all hospitals should be closed. Just because we close a broken solution, doesn’t mean the problem goes away. I so wish there were better options for the countless children who fall through the cracks of society.
If the family is not in the picture, and adoption is a real alternative, it should always be encouraged. Unfortunately, adoption is not a reality for the vast majority of children living in any care situation. The latest figures available are that only 2% of children living in care situations worldwide ever get adopted. Most have multiple siblings, are “too old” to adopt, or they have some living family that still has a claim on them. Depending on adoption for a child’s future is very much like depending on the lottery for your retirement: It might work, but not likely.
A couple of years ago, eleven-year-old Pablo (not his real name) was brought to us after being removed from his home due to neglect on the part of his mom. He had been bouncing around the system for a while. He hadn’t been in school, was in bad shape physically, and had spent way too much time on the streets. After a few days here, he expressed amazement that he was getting three meals a day and asked if that was normal. His mother is currently working with the government to receive custody of Pablo. Mom visits from time to time but is still not doing very well; she’s dealing with some long-standing substance abuse issues. Pablo is now doing great in school, just graduated top of his class, and has become a real part of our family. We know we don’t replace loving parents, but here Pablo has a loving home with people who deeply care about him, great opportunities, and a future that was just a dream a few years ago. Very recently, Pablo came to us with a request. He knows his mom is working on getting him back, but he’s also bright enough to know he has no future with her. He has asked that if his mom gets custody, and if it’s OK with her if he could still live here. He wants to stay here so he can continue in school, work for a better life, and just visit his mom. We sincerely hope and pray that his mom gets her life in order, but until that happens, we want to provide a great home to Pablo, and the many other Pablos who are out there.
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I Hate “The Poor”
OK, that was a pretty obvious click-bait title, but the idea still holds. I have nothing against people of lesser means (I’m one of them), what this blog is about is the title or identification of “poor people” that the bulk of the world might fall into. By the very act of referring to a group or nationality as “the poor” we, at some level, diminish their importance and make a quick judgment about them. It’s a profoundly demeaning term. “The poor” equals lesser, not as good, somehow less deserving, of lower value. Most people are in denial about this attitude, but the unspoken implications of the term “the poor” are there most of the time. Society, and sadly, the church, frequently uses terms that bulk people together that shouts, “Less important than us.” “The homeless,” “the migrants,” etc. give the subtle yet clear implication of class distinction.
The first thing many people do when they meet someone is ask, “What do you do?” Most people are naturally inclined to categorize people into groups. The simplest of these categories are richer and poorer, and by asking someone what they do for a living, we’re ready to find out what class they belong to. We don’t want to admit it, but the richer are generally considered brighter or better. Money is how most people keep score, and what we “do” usually sets that score. Who has the bigger house, the cooler car, etc. No one likes to think they judge others on this scale, but in reality, almost everyone does. Once we bulk any group of people into a simple category, it’s just too easy to see them as different, lesser individuals.
Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? James 2:2-4
Levels in society isn’t a new idea; class distinctions have been around for thousands of years. Do we still have a class system but are in denial about it? If we’re honest with ourselves: Yup, most of the time. The upper income of society looks down on everyone else, and the lower income population generally has contempt for most wealthier people (although they would like to be one someday)
The implication of class titles or distinctions, even if they are only implied, has a profound impact on short-term missions, long-term missions, and ministry in general.
When a church or missions team starts out with the idea or statement that they want to go and “help the poor,” it can set the stage for some unhealthy, one-directional relationships. There is an automatic implication that because the group has resources, they are better than the group they are going to serve. It would never be said out loud, but there is the implication that the group with the money is better, brighter, somehow has more of God’s favor. Contempt is not a good place to start to build a relationship, and ministry is ALL about relationships.
The best way to go into a relationship is on equal footing, to have mutual respect for each other. The world says that if we have more stuff, we must be better. The critical point is, what the world says doesn’t matter in the bigger picture. God sees all of us as equal; He is not impressed by the same scorecard that we use. He uses a very different scorecard.
The right attitude when going into short-term missions is not just “What can we give these people?”, the question should be “How can we work alongside these people to further the Kingdom?” The idea of working together shows mutual respect, a recognizing that we are all on equal footing working together for the same goal.
It’s critical to understand and embrace the fact that in the eyes of God, without Him, we are all impoverished. If we have a few more dollars in our bank account, it means nothing. This is easy to say, but to truly embrace the idea that money doesn’t matter is very rare. Even from the other side, when “wealthy Americans” show up in the mission field people have a different reaction, more attention is given, attitudes change.
I was once in a meeting in northern Malawi, in an area that does not see very many Americans. Just the idea that I had the means to travel to this area put me in a different economic position. I was with several very respected local leaders and just wanted to listen to what they had to say. When the meeting came around to me, they didn’t use my name, the name of my organization, or any term that I expected. It was grandly announced that “The white man will now speak.” The meeting went silent waiting for some deep wisdom just because I was from a wealthy country. It was never discussed, but just me being American brought a particular unwanted class distinction. Is was awkward at many levels.
We really are all the same. Some people might have a few more dollars, but compared to the riches of our Heavenly Father, we are all poor. The dollars we do have are really His anyway. It is in embracing our own poverty that we can inherit the incredible grace and riches that our Father wants us to have. Maybe we should all embrace being “the poor.”
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DJ from the orphanage 