Sundays

 Not many things can compete with a Sunday afternoon nap. After two later nights, the little boys were tired enough that while Vania took her nap, Reuben slept with mom and Krassi fell asleep snuggled up with Dad! How neat is that? It is no small thing for this boy to accept snuggling. We have made some significant progress in this area over the last two months (that I started to write a post about, but it's still stuck in half-finished draft stage), but if anything that only makes something like this even more precious. Our son who is still afraid to let someone be *too* close (emotionally) is giving us little glimpses into the scared, lonely little boy hiding under the I-can-survive-without-love outside that he had to learn in order to survive the early years of his life.

We don't have pictures of it, but we had some of the kids' music on this evening before bed, and a crew of us were dancing with it - Rinnah's quite the dancer, and Reuben was jumping, and even Leah popped in a few times with her dish drying cloth. I prefer dancing with a little one in my arms, so first 'Vania got a turn, and then Krassi worked his way into the room and he got a turn. I LOVE dancing with this boy! He laughs and laughs and laughs!! We twirl and spin and slide and bounce, and he's giggling the whole time with that huge, wide, lovely smile of his.

And as I was thinking about commenting to Matt that Krassi never got to spend Sunday evenings dancing with his mommy when he was little, the reality that far from dancing, he often didn't get to even see anybody - anybody! - on Sundays because the staff didn't really want to come in on Sundays, and the director didn't really want to pay them to do it anyway, so often Sundays were the day he didn't get his once-daily diaper change, and didn't even get his pour-it-down-your-throat gruel in a bottle.

There are many days when the horrifying conditions that were his only reality for eight long years seem so unreal that I can't find a place for them in my consciousness, and then some days like today when it floods back and catch in my throat and my heart.

Open your mouth for the mute,
For the rights of all the unfortunate. 
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
And defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.
(Proverbs 31: 8-9)

Twelve days ago, twelve of Krassimir's former orphanage-mates' nightmares became real-life as they were moved from the Pleven orphanage to a small group home run and staffed by people who lost their jobs when the new director took over the Pleven baby house. Plans for this move were happening unbeknownst to the current director until less than a week before the move was to take place. Originally, they were to take 20 of the older children from the orphanage into their new group home, but the new orphanage director (who continues to make good progress) managed to make a case for eight of them being too medically fragile to be cared for at the new group home. But that still leaves twelve defenseless children who grew up under the abuse and neglect of these people, who have had just over two years to begin to heal and grow, back in the hands of the very people who damaged them so severely.

I get sick to my stomach just thinking about it. Krassimir has very low cognitive abilities, but he has the ability to recognize people. We saw this about him in the first week we met him at his orphanage, showing a range of appropriate emotions: happiness (to his baba), ambivalence, trepidation (for us), and even now, he will recognize and respond with pleasure to seeing the face of a person he's only seen once before, but has treated him with kind ness! I can't imagine what it must be like for those twelve children to be not only seeing the faces of their abusers, but seeing only their faces now, and none of the faces they've been learning to trust.

There is very little from a human side that we can do to "open our mouths" for these afflicted, needy, voiceless children. But you can open your mouth to God on behalf of these children!

And there is something tangible you can do for at least one of those twelve children. I have not been very vocal in this way on my blog, but this situation really grabs me, so I'm going to throw it out there just in case God is directing one of you reading this to do something. Two of the children who've been transferred are currently available for international adoption, and one of them, nicknamed "Brandon", who reminds us very much of Krassi - same diagnosis, same age - just a week ago had a family who was already into the process of adopting another little boy with severe medical issues from a different orphanage in Bulgaria decide to add him to their adoption process. Unbeknownst to him, Brandon is not only going to get out of the horrific situation he's back in, but he's going to leave not to go back to the Pleven orphanage, but to a family!!! They are currently trying to raise the extra money that it will cost to adopt a second child rather quickly so they don't compromise their other soon-to-be-son's health by adding extra time to the adoption. If you're interested in helping, you can go here to donate funds to Brandon's family for his adoption expenses.

Brandon

And since I'm on this topic of speaking out for orphans, Matt and I have a friend from graduate school who has adopted a child from the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the government there has suspended the issuing of exit visas for these children. Hundreds of children in the Congo are legally adopted but have not been given the visas they need to travel to the US to live with their families. So they wait. And their families wait. This situation has been going on for over a year and a half, and some of these former orphans have died while waiting for their families to come get them, and the rest of them are just stuck there...waiting. A formal petition to our government has been initiated in an attempt to let President Obama know that these children matter, and asking him to intervene. If you are so inclined, you can go here to add your name to the petition.

We can't fix all the problems in this world, but we are told to speak out on behalf of those who have no voice, so that's all I'm asking - if God is telling you to act on their behalf, here are a few ways you can do that.