All humans are designed to want to be noticed, acknowledged, seen. That is one of my deepest desires to be understood and seen by others, and truly known.
The same is true for the 400 precious children that are at the orphanage I’ve been working with this month in Vietnam. However in their case they are often forgotten children. Many of them are left at the gate, in a field, or even sometimes directly dropped off by parents who simply don’t want them. Sometimes this is because of a deformity. Children that were halfway aborted, but somehow made it through.
Others have down syndrome, or other mental delays and the family doesn’t want or can’t afford the burden of caring for them. Still other times the children are orphaned because they are girls and a boy was more desired by the family. And, I am sure there are countless other reasons that these little ones are abandoned.
But what breaks my heart the most is that these precious ones that I’ve had the pleasure of hugging and kissing this month aren’t even acknowledged as living. By the governments standards they don’t exist since they have no paperwork or birth certificates. They are the forgotten ones, from their families to the government, they don’t count.
Sadly this means that they can’t continue to go to school past grade 5 which makes their future look like it will be filled with many challenges. Because they don’t have paperwork, they also can never be adopted. They can’t legally EVER leave the country since they have no records, so they are like nameless caged birds with tons of obstacles before them.
For those with disabilities life may even been harder without the proper care for their given condition. There is one girl who has my heart. She is deaf and mute. She is so smart, and even with this challenge she still involves herself amongst her peers as if she has no disability. She is a leader, not afraid to stand in the front of the classroom in front of her peers. But she can’t deeply communicate with them. If only she had a hearing aide, and someone to teach her to communicate/sign language…that would change her life, or at least give her a chance to fit into the world around her.
I’ve thought to myself, how lonely it must be alone in her own world, not being able to fully communicate her thoughts, needs, and emotions with her peers, teachers, and house aides. But even still, she smiles. She is beautiful, she is strong and resilient.
I see her. She exist to me and she is precious!
This very thought reminds me that we serve a God who sees us. El Roi, a Old Testament name for God means just that: The God who sees, and He is just that.
Right where we are, He sees our circumstances, our condition, and our need. In a world where we may feel forgotten there is One who has not forgotten us and sees us not just on the surface, but deeply to the core of who we are.
God sees my little friends at the orphanage, and He has a plan to redeem every broken thing their (and each of our) lives have seen. He is the God who sees us, who has our very name engraved on his hand, and these sweet babies exist to Him, and He has great purpose and plans for them.
Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the LORD, who had spoken to her. She said,
“You are the God who sees me.” She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?”
Genesis 16:13
I’m praying that you (reader) as well as these little precious little ones at the orphanage would know at the depth of who you are, that there is a God who sees you today and always, and is working on your behalf.
