As you saw in our video from South Africa, TLC is a totally amazing place, full of joy, redemption, and adoption. But I just wanted to add a few things I couldn’t in the video. We can’t attach stories and names to pictures, but here are just a few of the stories of how many of the kids got here…
One of the girls was left in a plastic bag in the middle of a field and deprived of oxygen, and developed cerebral palsy and deemed unadoptable by the government.
One of the girls was so malnourished that her parents dropped her off at TLC to die. She’s now almost 2 years old and smiling, though she is struggling to walk and eat solid food.
One of the baby girls was poisoned by her mother as a newborn.
A set of twins’ mother died in childbirth before she had the time to write the dad’s name on the birth certificates, and so the father has no legal right to them, and they are now up for adoption.
One of the girls was born without HIV, even though her mother had it, and her mother was upset, so she breastfed the child to give her HIV too.
One of the girls was raped at four months of age and came to TLC with her insides torn up.
One of the boys was left in the backyard of a bar for years with dogs, and passers-by would throw food and see who first got it, the boy or the dog.
One of the six week old babies is currently in the hospital with an unidentifiable and untreatable (by African standards) disease that the doctors have only read about in books. As you read this, she is in the hospital, not being held, on an IV drip, oxygen tubes, and in an incubator. We’re not sure if she’s going to make it.
But there are so so so many hopeful stories too. Currently, my favorite is a little 7 month old boy, who sits so contently on the floor, smiling. I love coming into the room and scooping him up, sticking my nose in his face and ticking him and whispering to him over and over that he is meeting his new mommy and daddy in what is now four days. He is so little and so precious. And there are so many great plans for his life that he, at 7 months old, has no clue about.
It’s kind of like our lives. God has so many crazy plans for our lives that we have no idea about, and they’re so good. Plans to prosper us and not to harm us. Plans to give us a hope and a future.
Speaking of good future plans… we head to Mozambique on the day of the baby boy’s adoption! We are going to a village named Manga outside of Beira, Mozambique! Beira is in central Mozambique on the Indian Ocean. We will be working with Emmanuel Orphanage Center, working with churches, and whatever else they need. We’re totally excited about this month. So bring on the rainy season, mosquitos, and apparently giant spiders that chase your shadow. Lovely. Pray for us!! We have NO idea what God is up to for next month, but just as he has plans for the little boy’s adoption, He has such great plans for us!
