30 Minutes

.....(continued from THIS POST).....

After 6 long weeks walking the dusty roads of Aaron's village, we were finally seeing the light at the end of our deep, dark tunnel.  

The adoption paper chase was on again. Leaving Aaron and his institution behind for a day, we drove away in a car that was just barely up to the job of carrying us. We wound through the countryside over roads that looked like they had been the targets of an artillery barrage. We stopped twice to change out flat tires:

The paper chase carried us first to the village where Aaron was born, then to the city that was home to the orphanage where he spent his first five years.

It seemed bizarre that his institution was so far removed from his birthplace. Our facilitator explained this to us: when disabled children in Aaron's country are transferred from their baby houses to special needs institutions for older children, they must take the next available bed, wherever that may be. Sometimes this means that they are transported far from the towns where they were born, making it next to impossible for their families to visit them. Transfer means that some of these poor children are completely alone, with no family support, for the first time in their lives. This is a very sad reality.

It was during our headache-inducing car ride that we discovered that our facilitator, Luda, had recently visited Aaron's baby house:  she had facilitated an adoption there. We were excited to see the baby house and meet his caretakers, but we weren't sure Luda would want to take the time to visit. She made the time, and honored our wishes by graciously translating for us. For 30 minutes, we got to talk to a wonderful orphanage director in Aaron's country, as well as to the loving nurse who had taken Aaron under her wing for the first five years of his life.

Those were the sweetest 30 minutes of our time in that country. They were also the most gut-wrenching minutes.  They changed us.  In those 30 minutes, God opened our eyes wide to the reality of what "transfer" means. He confronted us with the reality that special needs children in that country face. Over the next 24 hours, God did a number on our hearts, and showed us in vivid colors what our son lost on the day they trundled him into a car and sent him away from the safe, predictable world of his baby house.

....to be continued....