Abandoned-Orphaned

World Orphans Iraq Vehicle

Below is the SUV that was just purchased for World Orphans Iraq. It's your typical Non-Government-Organization (NGO) vehicle with bench seating for ten adults. More importantly, it'll be used by our missionary family there. Could you please pray for all who travel in it across Northern Iraq and beyond?

Child Soldier (A New Chapter)

I was nearly twelve when it happened. It was almost my time to begin as a one of those entrusted with guns. I thought maybe it had something to do with that. The soldiers lined us up and began to sort through our ranks. I saw they were choosing the worst of us, the weakest. I was chosen because I had a limp from a falling rock in the quarry. I tried to stand straight so I would not be hit but my shirt was too tight. Some years my clothes hung loose, some years they fit almost right. That day my clothes pinched my shoulders. I only had the clothes that were on my back. When I turned twelve they would have given me a real soldier's outfit.

A man with a smile walked around us and took pictures. He put his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered. I still remember my friends. Most of them had painful sickness that people say came from laying with the soldiers. I don't like it when men smile at me now. The commanders told us we had been cast off from the army and this man would soon take us because we were no good any more.

Several moon cycles later I was still in the army. I wondered some days what would happen when I left. The army was almost my only memory. Then I became very sick. My mind wandered and I cried for my father to come back and take me home. On the day the man came for me I could not get up when the rope beat its tattoo on my side. Later they piled my hot body into a truck. I lay among the others while we were driven to the place I now live. I think we were all very sick.

It was like a dream. Children from the new place came and helped me down from the truck. They looked very fat so I knew I was dreaming. At first we shared the beds of these nice, fat children because there was no place for us. Their beds were very soft. They were kind and so were the adults. I did not see any soldiers. Every day they fed us rice porridge and gave us medicine. I was told this was my new home.

They told me about a man named Jesus who loves me and a Father who lives in heaven who sent Jesus to look for me. They said when He found me He brought me here, to this place, just because He loves me so much. At first I could not believe, but then I did not die when I knew I should have. And the people were so kind. I had three meals a day and warm blankets, a change of clothes and new shoes. I even used soap for the first time in my life. I wept many tears of joy at night when I was in my new bed.

Now I have been here one year. At night we all gather to sing songs of thanks to this Father in heaven and His Son who came to be with us. We feel Him so near us when we sing and pray. I have decided that I will follow this Jesus. He is also a soldier I am told, but He is stronger because He is love, not hate. I do not understand all of this but I know that I have been rescued and it is God in heaven that I want to follow. I am now part of His good army.

Child Soldier (Longing for Death)

The year I was numbered eight years old, they began to teach me to be tough, to hate, to have a heart to kill my enemies. This was easy. My only family was the army and I hated them too. I couldn't run away, though. There was nowhere to hide. A few years before, many of my friends ran away. I thought I heard the guns barking in the distance but I don't know. Only a few returned out of many ten's of fingers of children that fled.

I began to train with weapons when my instructors decided I was near my tenth year. This was good because I spent less times quarrying rock and my back and legs did not ache as much. Because so many of my friends died, there is a void in my heart.

Some of my friends would go to bed with the older soldiers at night. They escaped the sound of the rope in the morning and, afterwards, there was money in their pockets to buy small things. It frightened me, though, because many of them wept in the days that followed. Some became very sick and if we are sick in that place we most likely die. There is no help and no hope for the sick there. The dark spirits are very powerful.

What is death like? Do I wander around like a ghost or can I just forget that I am alive and sleep a very deep sleep? These are the questions I asked myself sometimes, but most days were too difficult for the lips of my thoughts to speak to me.

View part one of this story here
View part two of this story here

To be continued...

McCain's Adopted Daughter from Asia

Many people might be surprised to learn that US Presidential hopeful, John McCain, has an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Below is an interview excerpt from Dadmag.com that was conducted during Senator McCain’s pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination in 2000:

Interview with John McCain

Senator John McCain waged a vigorous high-profile campaign for the 2000 Republican Presidential nomination. Among many compelling facts, we were interested to learn that one of his children is adopted. We asked Morgan Strong, a veteran interviewer and consultant to CBS' Sixty Minutes and The Early Show, to get some details. Strong talked to McCain shortly after the Senator's recent trip to Vietnam.

Dadmag: What are the up and downs of fatherhood?

McCain: There are too many joys to name the ups. The only sad part about it is that children grow up. I watch my daughter turn fifteen and my son turn fourteen and I see them getting ready to leave the nest, and I see their interest in me diminishing rather dramatically. (Laughs).

Dadmag: Your youngest daughter Bridget is adopted. Why did you decide to adopt Bridget?

McCain: Well it was primarily my wife's Cindy's idea. She was in Bangladesh and she and some of the medical personnel visited Mother Theresa's orphanage to try and help the children there. There were two little baby girls there. One had a heart problem the other a severe cleft palate. Cindy was very concerned about their ability to survive and their need for medical treatment, so she decided to bring them here for medical treatment. She fell in love with both of them. We decided to adopt Bridget. Two close friends of ours, adopted Mickey, the other child.

Dadmag: You knew about your wife's decision before hand?

McCain: (laughs) No. She arrived and said "Say hello to your new little daughter."

Dadmag: A bit of a shock?

McCain: Yes indeed.

Dadmag: And how has it worked out? Are you happy with the decision to adopt Bridget?

McCain: Oh yes! She has enriched our lives. She's a wonderful child, a complete part of our family and we love her.

Dadmag: Your other children accepted her well?

McCain: Oh yeah sure. She's the toughest of the four. The youngest always has to be the toughest.

Dadmag: During your campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination Bridget became something of an issue in South Carolina didn't she?

McCain: Yeah. There were some pretty vile and hurtful things said during the South Carolina primary. It's a really nasty side of politics. We tried to ignore it and I think we shielded her from it. It's just unfortunate that that sort of thing still exists As you know she's Bengali, and very dark skinned. A lot of phone calls were made by people who said we should be very ashamed about her, about the color of her skin. Thousands and thousands of calls from people to voters saying "You know the McCains have a black baby" I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those.

Dadmag: That must have made you pretty angry?

McCain: Yes, except that you have to consider the kind of people who do it. Getting angry doesn't serve any useful purpose. But the calls increased my zeal for winning. (laughs)

Dadmag: There are an awful lot of African American children who could be adopted, but there are those who object, including African American organizations which have a policy against interracial adoption.

McCain: I see that barrier more and more breaking down. I think we are making great progress. We just need to make a lot more progress.

Dadmag: You had to go through an extraordinary process to adopt Bridget. A very intrusive process by the bureaucrats. They came to your home and rifled through your drawers. According to what I've read, adoption agency officials even asked about your sex life.

McCain: They were very intrusive. Unfortunately it is a disincentive to some parents because it's so much easier to go overseas. And that leaves us, in this country, with thousands of children who want parents and thousands of parents who want children. One of the goals I've had for a long time is to try to encourage a much less convoluted process in order for parents to adopt a child.

Dadmag: Is this necessary or is it just the bureaucracy gone a little mad?

McCain: A little of both. They want to make sure that those who want to adopt are fit to do so. I think sometimes bureaucrats stretch it out for fear of getting in trouble or getting something wrong. And I also think that there are state laws, probably the result of some bad things having taken place, that are legislative overreactions. I just wish that every state would review their laws concerning the process of adoption, to expedite it but at the same time protect the child.

Dadmag: Would the abortion issue be made less troublesome if the adoption process were made easier.

McCain: Absolutely. Since our own story has been publicized we hear a lot from many many parents who have experienced the same frustrations.

Dadmag: You have co-sponsored legislation in the Senate to streamline the process.

McCain: Yes, but it is largely a state responsibility. We have tried to encourage the states to review their adoption procedures. We can not do much at the federal level.

Dadmag: Political life at any level exposes the children to any number of potential calamities. As a candidate for President the scrutiny and curiosity is even more oppressive. Was it hard to protect them?

McCain: That's one of the reasons we decided to raise our children in Arizona. Because we felt it would be a much healthier life style for them. And that's been the case.

Dadmag: Any final words?

McCain: There is nothing in life like a child that you can nurture and love. The reciprocation of that love and nurturing is a thousand times more beneficial to you than it is to the child.

Child Soldier (The Rhythm of the Rope)

My first morning I still remember. I woke that day to the rhythm of the rope upon my body. The song of the rope I know well now. It woke us very early every morning, before the great light had risen in the sky. It struck the flesh of all who were not rising from sleep quickly enough. Most of us did not wake unless we had to. Our bodies ached fearfully and in sleep we could forget. The rope that bit our flesh seldom causes us to bleed but there are times, oh yes, there are times.

We would gather to attention in the courtyard. There we stood and drilled. Every day was the same.

The rope was our companion as we marched out to the fields to work. All of us had to labor in the fields. We also worked in rock quarries, we built roads, we carried the burdens of the soldiers, sometimes many days by foot. If we had ridden on a truck to work, we would be like pigs going to market. And who would want to do that? They would be going to market to be slaughtered. Yes, we learned that we were animals. The difference is we speak and other beasts are dumb.

After a stretch of work in the morning, we would get a break. We were given food in dirty, cracked bowls: rice with some vegetable broth. It gurgled painfully into the knot that lived and twisted in my stomach. I think it was an angry spirit that came to steal what little food I got. At night I was given maybe half a bowl of the same food...if I was fortunate. If we tried to take more, the rope slithered across our shoulders.

The rope's only comfort is that it is familiar.

View part one of this story here.

To be continued...

Child Soldier (Abandoned to the Army)

The story that follows is a compilation that was crafted using the real lives and circumstances of children rescued by our partner who visited us last week. The individual story details are merged together in order to protect the identities and lives of the children involved, but the compilation is an accurate representation of real world scenarios involving non-combatant child soldiers in Southeast Asia:

Abandoned to the Army

When I was six my parents gave me to the army. Early in the morning my father pulled me out of sleep. It was still dark. He packed me on his back down the mountain trail from the village. His long black hair tickled my nose all the way. After we came to the main road I had to walk. We walked most of the day. I had no water and my throat was chalky dry because it was the time of no rain. We walked between the rocks in the red powder of the earth as the red sun beat upon my head.

Finally we came to a cluster of houses. At the side of the road was a tin roofed lean-to. Men with guns sat in the shade of the slanted roof and also some stood in the shadow of a great tree that spread its frog-like limb’s over the road. They looked mean and I was scared but my father walked over to them. He left me near the base of the tree and went to talk with some of the men near a truck. I played with a dung beetle in the dirt.

Father turned away from the men and began walking down the road. He never even looked at me. I thought he had forgotten me. I cried out, "Papa," but he did not turn back. I began to run after him but one of the men in green caught me by the arm and cuffed me. "You stay here," he slurred at me. I was shocked. I tried to lunge away but he struck me again.

That evening they threw me on the supplies that awkwardly filled the truck and told me to hold on or die. We drove all night till my arms ached and my skin stung sore from the dust and wind. In the morning we arrived at a town and drove up to a cement and metal fence. This was to be my prison. I did not know what a prison was. I did not even know what an army was. But now I know because I have lived in this place of no escape. I later found out my parents had offered me for nothing, I was not even worth a few coins!

Some of my friends came here because they were orphans. Some of them were conscripted. Others were abandoned. I was one of the most unfortunate –so I thought. My parents disowned me. I don’t know why. Maybe, as I learn more about my world, I will figure it out. I think there was not enough food and my mother’s stomach was taut with a coming child. Another still nursed at her breast. My two brothers, both older than me, worked hard on the farm. They could help father better than I could –I heard them say it.

To be continued...

My Tears Will Speak for Me

Last week, the founder of one of our partner organizations was in town for a visit. He and his family came over for dinner and shared their hearts concerning their ministry’s rescue of child soldiers in Southeast Asia, especially in the wake of the cyclone that caused so many more vulnerable orphans in the region. Southeast Asia boasts approximately 100,000 child soldiers, with the majority being sold, stolen or tricked into conscription in Burma.

Here is one of the stories that they share, from a young girl who managed to escape the clutches of a militaristic regime:

"Please excuse my tears...they must fall because there are many things I cannot say. My tears must speak for me.

My parents were drug traffickers, but they were addicts, too. I think some of you have seen what drugs can do. They make you a slave to their hunger, and eventually a thief and a beggar...that is what happened to my father. Last I knew, he was begging on the streets. I have been a thief, too, but I am not begging yet.

Having no good place to go as a teenager, I was recruited into the army when I was 15 years old. There were about 200 of us. We lived on a tall hill with gray walls that stretched high over our heads. The barracks were very close to the capital city and a long way from home. There were soldiers that stood guard along those walls. The guards were not there to protect us. They were there to keep us in.

Every day we built guns. At 5:00 AM every day, we did our morning run. By 8:00 AM, we were constructing guns. My job was to clean them. We were a munitions factory. But we were also soldiers. Some of us were very young, very small, even 3 years old. Others had lived there so long that they were over 30 years old. Many of us were girls. "Obey!" our bosses said. We had many bosses. Obedience: that was the motto. If we tried to escape, well, the guards would shoot.

Everybody rotated through guard duty at different intervals through the night. Every night the drill signal sounded and we had to hustle out of bed, rush into our uniform and be in parade formation within 30 seconds. How easy is that? Those who were late were beaten. We hit them too, because if they got there in time, we didn’t have to drill that next day. But that happened about as often as a chicken goes a day without pecking the dust for food. Almost every night we were drilled, so we slept lightly. Sometimes we had to run to a village in the dark of night with guns or crawl through trenches in the mud and rain...everybody 13 and older that is. The littlest kids were our gophers. They ran errands for everybody during the day.

Everybody was under tight security. We were not even allowed to smile or the stick would come down on us. Of course, you learned quickly not to smile. Some felt the stick for other things. I watched people beaten for escaping to make love in the field. I watched others beaten till they bled and died in front of my eyes.

One day I ran away. I was scared, but I did not die. Now I can’t go back to my people. I am so troubled because of the things I have seen and done. 

I can speak no words that shield me from the pain...so I will not speak. My many tears will speak for me."

All is Not What it Seems

There is nearly unanimous agreement that China’s opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games was a masterpiece. However, as we’ve learned over the past few days, all is not what it seems.

Stories hit the media earlier this week that part of the fireworks display was faked - a computer-generated animation prepared months ago and fed out by Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, the entity that controls and provides the primary video feeds of all Olympics events to other broadcasters.

Now, today, it has come to light that the precious little girl who sang "Ode to the Motherland" during the opening ceremony was, in fact, lip-synching to another child's voice.

The musical director for the event, Chen Qigang, admitted that, "After several tests, we decided to put Lin Miaoke on the live picture, while using Yang Peiyi's voice. The reason for this is that we must put our country's interest first. The girl appearing on the picture must be flawless in terms of her facial expression and the great feeling she can give to people."

The New York Times reported, "Under pressure from the highest levels of the ruling Communist Party to find the perfect face and voice, the ceremony’s production team concluded the only solution was to use two girls instead of one. Miaoke, a third grader, was judged cute and appealing but "not suitable" as a singer. Another girl, Yang Peiyi, 7, was judged the best singer but not as cute. So when Miaoke opened her mouth to sing, the voice that was actually heard was a recording of Peiyi."

My heart crumbles for little Peiyi who lost her opportunity to sing, in person, for a billion people because the country that devalues girls so much deemed her as not cute enough.

Near the end of the opening ceremony, we saw thousands of pictures of little children held up by the performers. The images were also repeated on the fringe screens that wrap the whole stadium – a plethora of bright, smiling children.

Too bad that China’s one child policy, the desire for perfection, the devaluation of the female child, and the preference for a "lucky" male heir, means that thousands (by some estimates, millions) of children - mainly little girls like Miaoke and Peiyi - are presently languishing in Chinese orphanages.

Look past the façade, folks. I’m a father with a Chinese daughter. I used to work with and in Chinese orphanages. I’ve seen the reality of bleak holding cells filled with the children that the Chinese government now wants you to believe are cherished and valued.

The dying rooms still exist. Abandonment occurs in record numbers as precious little infants and pig-tailed girls are discarded, victims of a system that places very little value on human life.

The Ancients (part four)

The second-century Christian philosopher, Clement of Alexandra, authored a great trilogy of works on the development of early Christian ethics and moral conduct. In book two, Paedagogus, he produces a scathing account of the wealthy, pleasure-seeking, gossiping, unfaithful women of the time. An excerpt refers to their preference for fine animals rather than the elderly, widows and orphans:

"These women...pride themselves not in their husbands, but in those wretches which are a burden on the earth, and overlook the chaste widow, who is of far higher value than a Melitæan pup, and look askance at a just old man, who is lovelier in my estimation than a monster purchased for money. And though maintaining parrots and curlews, they do not receive the orphan child; but they expose children that are born at home, and take up the young of birds, and prefer irrational to rational creatures."

From: Philospoher Clement of Alexandra, Paedagogus (Alexander translation) 3.4, by W. L. Alexander, from Ante-Nicene Fathers

In our time and culture we don’t typically expose our babies to die while saving chicks that have fallen from nests. But this dichotomy still exists to a degree, don’t you think?

The Ancients (part three)

In a letter dated 1 BC, a Roman man writes to his pregnant wife back home:

"I am still in Alexandria...I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son, and as soon as I receive payment I shall send it up to you. If you are delivered (before I come home), if it is a boy, keep it, if a girl, discard it."

From: Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 744, translated in Naphtali Lewis, Life in Egypt Under Roman Rule (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 54.

The casual nature of this infanticide instruction is very unsettling to us as twenty-first century Western readers, regardless of our religious beliefs and convictions. But it is clearly indicative of the low value placed on human life in the pagan Roman society of that age. It was totally acceptable, and even encouraged in many cases, to kill an unwanted child after birth. The male leader of a family was given full authority under Roman law to do so.

Death usually came through drowning - an easily accessible and quiet execution - or by exposing the child to the elements and wild beasts outside of town. Similarly, in ancient Greece, and throughout Southern and Eastern Asia, infanticide was common, widespread, and permissible.

Even the leading philosophers of the day supported and advocated for the murder of the innocents. To defend the shameful practice, Cicero referred to the Twelve Tables of Roman law that specifically expressed that it was suitable to kill weakly babies. The Twelve Tables also expressed that is was allowable to expose female infants no matter how healthy there were. It is almost incredulous to see that even revered thinkers like Plato and Aristotle viewed the killing of infants as a valid right granted by the state.

We often think of infanticide as a crime perpetuated by uneducated, illiterate, impoverished persons living in the rural areas of struggling third-world countries. The reality is that the practice was approved and legitimized in highly-civilized ancient cultures, in well-developed cities, and across all socio-economic strata. The deeper reality, of course, is that the historical path of infanticide is evidence of the ancient, corrupted heart of man.

To be continued...