We took one of our Mercy House boys back to his foster family today ( after catching him attempting to steal from us ) and we immediately picked up another child - an eleven year old boy named JayVee. He is already proving to be a LOT of fun. He has an amazing sense of humor and, as an added bonus for ME, he speaks a lot of English. I can usually tell within a few minutes if I'm going to click with a child.
We click.
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| JayVee (green shirt) posing with our son, Kyle |
Here is the quandary that keeps us up at night and has us utterly CONVINCED one minute and filled with doubt the next:
REUNIFICATION
We have a tiny boy in our care at Mercy House. He has a mother, an aunt and a grandmother who love him. They want him back.
Seems simple enough, right? No. Not right and not simple.
We looked for them for three months and finally found them. They didn't know where this child was. They were frantic.
And now they want him back.
Our ministry philosophy has always been and is still that Filipino children are best off in The Philippines with their biological family whenever that option is a safe one.
But is it?
This child is THREE. This little family is poor and struggles with basic needs. We can help them there but is it enough?
Our social worker has the weighty task of evaluating and monitoring this family to ensure that they take care of this little one but none of us can be there around the clock.
And add in the "monkey wrench" of the fact that we really love this little boy.
And you have THE QUANDARY.
The power of words is startling in this situation. The recommendations we and our social worker make determine the course of this precious child's life.
Our words can send him back to his family or they can start him on the fast track to adoption.
Our words can keep him here at Mercy House for a long time or send him away in a matter of weeks.
This deepens the quandary.
What if we decide he can go back to the family and something bad happens to him? What if his mother relapses and takes him on another long walk to unfamiliar territory? Will he be so lucky the second time to be placed in care before an accident happens?
In my pre-missionary days, there would be no quandary. I would have stated unequivocally that being adopted to the US, Australia, Spain or somewhere "richer" was clearly the best answer to his need for permanency.
But I live here now. In a developing nation.
And I know that for every child placed on the road to adoption, another child is waiting. And another. And another.
There are simply not enough adoptive parents open to older child with negative birth history to ensure that someone will step forward for this little angel.
And he is. An angel, I mean.
He's funny and smart and very small for his age. He understands jokes and tries to speak English a lot.
I know some family out there has been praying for a little boy just like him. Only they don't know it.
And we could get him all set to be adopted.
But is that the best thing for him? Not only him. His mother? His grandmother? His aunt? His two older brothers?
They love him, you know.
Being poor doesn't mean they love less deeply than the rest of us. They are just more powerless.
THIS is another layer of the quandary. I know what the Bible says about the responsibility I have toward the poor.
This is the reason I cling to the book of James and the promise that God gives wisdom generously to those who ask for it.
I'm asking . . .
