Itty Bitties

It's the year of the Itty Bitties….

The littlest babies.

The teeny tiny tots under 5.

Some people groaned when it was announced that ONLY the Itty Bitties would be on the Angel Tree (MACC) this year.

Some people questioned the wisdom of only picking the teeny ones.

I did a HUGE fist pump.

I jumped up and down for joy.

I might even have cried a tiny bit.

  

All three of my adopted children were itty bitty babes in the orphanage.

All three were in decently run baby houses.

All three faced the sorrow and trauma of being transferred.

One went to a decently run older Level 2/3 children's internat where he spent way too long and learned that it is a dog-eat-dog world in orphanage land. 

One went to a Level 3 internat and then got dropped almost right away into the 'summer camp' from hell where she was barely fed or given her meds. She came out of that place bruised, sickly and starved. 

One was sent to a Level 4 mental institute. He wasted an entire year of his life sitting on a bench inside a shed.

All three suffered the trauma of transfer. All three were ripped from the familiar and placed in the unknown with no one by their side. All three learned behaviors of survival that are hard to give up. All three experienced abandonment. All three were completely alone.

In the birth country of my adopted children, transfer happens every year to the Itty Bitties who turn five.

Sometimes they are transferred even earlier than that.

Do you understand why I shouted for joy??

Don't get me wrong!  I care deeply about the older children. I grieve that they are too often lost in the system. All three of my children were 'older children.'

But I am so glad for the opportunity to yell for the Itty Bitties - to have the focus be on them in the hopes that they will find their Mamas and Papas before they have to face the trauma of transfer.

Some of those Itty Bitties are so fragile they will not survive transfer for long.

Some of them will end up in places where they will waste away with nothing to do and no one to engage their minds.

They are so little. They have such potential.

It's their year.

Seven of the Itty Bitties have found families - My Ronald is one of them.

There are 75 more teeny tots who are left.

Would you please go look at them?

Take a moment and SEE them.

If you have ever thought about adoption - if you are praying about it, considering it, wondering if there is room at your table - this is a beautiful opportunity to see 75 wee ones on one page. You can click their pictures and read their profiles. You can pray over them. Talk it over with your family. Pray some more.

Yes. Adoption is EXPENSIVE and LIFE CHANGING and EXHAUSTING and CONSUMING. Yes. You will never be the same.

But children belong in families. And these Itty Bitties are so in need of families. Some of them are in desperate situations. Without families they will not make it.

There are four more days until the New Year. Four more days for 75 wee ones to be seen on one page together. Four more days for yelling and advocating. Four more days for you to consider sowing into their grant accounts so that the cost of adopting them is relieved.

CLICK HERE to see the 75. Please see them. 

 

If you can't adopt them please give. 55 Itty Bitties still have not reached their 1,000 goal!