Skip to main content

Vulnerable children in Uganda - part one

"Abby gets a little excited when talking about orphans." My dear friend spoke with a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her lips.  Her words struck me.  "Isn't everyone passionate about orphans and vulnerable children?" I thought.

I am immersed in the "African orphan crisis."

I live it, breathe it, sweat it, feel it, speak it, hug it.

The "crisis" is inextricably woven into my family.

I have kept silent for long, as we have sat back as observers and learners.  But as our two year anniversary in Uganda approaches, I have decided to put down some thoughts for others to read, hopefully to help our supporters and friends get a better sense for what it means to be a vulnerable child in Africa.

As a means of introduction, we adopted one special needs child from Liberia 7 years ago and are adopting one abandoned total orphan from Uganda where we live (we've already been a family for a year and a half).  We have three biologically birthed children mixed in between.  We inherited a children's home here in Uganda which was filled with vulnerable war-affected children who have been slowly reunited with their families.

We adopted our firstborn daughter before we understood much of the complexity of the African Orphan Crisis.  Now that we understand it better, we would still adopt her, one hundred times over, knowing that she is one of the many vulnerable children whose lives have literally been saved because of international adoption.  Having done assessments on special needs children eligible for adoption, followed their stories, and stood by as 40% of them passed away before they could be adopted... we know that our Gracie's adoption was right, was ethical, was pleasing to God, and met the need.  International adoption has its place and we LOVE adoption!

But international adoption is not the first choice.  We view it as third choice in a string of options...

The African orphan has options?! We thought the African orphan was destitute, unwanted, dying in the gutters!

Some are - please understand that I am not diminishing the weight of this problem.

But WHO is the African orphan and what are her options?

To be continued....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Family of Three!

We are in Liberia - the electricity goes in and out because the generator is having trouble keeping up these days! So hopefully it will stay on long enough to post and the internet connection will allow me this luxury! We were united with precious Gracie on Thanksgiving day - I will write more about this later. But, oh! is Gracie a joy! She is so beautiful, so joyfilled, and a bit mischievious. Her physical limitations do not permit her to accomplish much mischief, but we can tell that she is trying to push some limits already. If we were not in love with her already, she is irresitable and such a treasure and blessing from God. In our two days together, she has not cried once. She spends most of her days smiling, she loves to snuggle (good match for us!), and has the most contagious laugh! Life takes more effort for her - her cerebral palsy is moderate and every activity is a challenge and is clearly tiring for her. Meal times (which she loves) take a long time and much patience and d...

New Stage of Life

Gracie has entered a new developmental stage. She now is active and has been rolling all over the floor. We cleared out a little living room so that she would have room to roll around - she's rolling front to back, both directions. She also has been much easier to get up on all fours - it used to take 3-4 adults to cram her into the crawling position due to her resistance. She now even spontaneously gets into a semi-crawling position on her own. In the crawling position she's been weight bearing even on her right arm (but always in combination with her left arm). She also has been rocking a little in the crawling position as if she gets it that this is a way that you can move! It's been so exciting. But it also makes her much more eager to be down with other kids and moving around. She's in a very active active stage, always moving, and wanting to move. She's also taken, not just a huge interest in other kids, but also interest in toys a bit more. She's so fun!

Check out this progress!

A year ago, my friend Rachel http://josiecomehome.blogspot.com/ emailed a photo of her beautiful son standing on his own... I've since dreamed of having a photo to post of Gracie doing the same thing. It was always one of those wild-don't-think-it'll-ever-happen kind of dreams, a romantic, fairy tale type of dream. But this week, Gracie made another leap in development and muscle tone. It started when I leaned her up against the wall and planted her feet a shoulder-width apart. For the first time, she didn't lunge for the safety of my arms or hands, but rather, she allowed herself to stand steadily on her own two feet and she kept her center of gravity centered over her feet instead of wildly in front of her or to one side or the other. She even quickly figured out that she couldn't lurch around in excitement while standing on her own two feet with no support but a wall behind her back, but rather had to express her excitement over this new development with a gentl...