A Painful Priviledge

Natural entertainment is abundant here. This afternoon I watched fifteen or more girls from the orphanage catch and beat a snake with sticks like it was a tatty wool carpet. The oldest girls took the first whack and with squeamish repetition continued to pummel the scaly intruder with rapid blows, its body still half-alive and continuing to wiggle and coil like the peel of an apple’s skin. With glued looks of concern, the girls faithfully beat the last hint of life out of the little monster, only to carry it with sticks to its fiery finish in the burn heap. There was something hilarious about the entire sight, and Beckah and I couldn’t stop laughing as the girls completed their heroic mission.

There is so much the girls laugh about here—from the catching of peculiar reptiles or insects to the funny way we look as foreigners trying to mimic their Indian cultural dances. From the peaking of sunrise to the moment I say my goodnights, it seems like smiles are almost permanent. But this year I feel like I have unlocked a world of insight behind each grin that I never before noticed during my first stay in India in the “Glorious Children’s Home.”

Considering the circumstances, the facility is most definitely glorious. In contrast to living on the streets, the girls receive the highest care, a quality education, ample meals, and a personal cubby to store all of their little trinkets and the things most valuable in the world to them. But for most—the absence of the most valuable thing, a family, makes living here fall very short of glorious. Though you’d never know it at first glance.

My first “awakening” occurred after daily hearing the girls quiz me on their names. Long after learning their names, they are still repeatedly asking me, “What is my name, Abbie Auntie? What is my name?” They are fully aware than I can recall their names, but somewhere embedded within each one of them is a stirring desire to be known. Hearing their name spoken over them is a glittering sign of their identity and worth. So they continue to pelt me with the question, “What is my name?” I can only imagine with forty-something girls and only two wardens that names being affectionately spoken or lovingly called is a rarity.

Two wardens is hardly a sufficient number of individuals to pour out the love, attention, counsel and care these girls need. In one sense, their situation is worlds better than the alternative of a street life, a life of prostitution, or a life of begging. In another sense, being raised in an institution—regardless of the quality—is not comparable to God’s ultimate plan: living life with a family. To have a mother and father instead of being raised by throngs of competitive peers. To have a special seat at the dinner table instead of a patch of cement floor to sit on while eating repetitive meals cooked for masses. To have a corner of the room to place your shoes or school bag instead of a three-by-three cubby that fits only the bare necessities.

And what happens when these girls grow too old to live here in the “Glorious Children’s Home” any longer? When, after years, they “age out” and have to move on? My heart is overwhelmingly burdened by the absence of options they have to move on to. There is of course, for some, the hope of marriage. But who has raised these girls to be Godly women, loving wives, and caring mothers? When motherhood is a foreign concept, why would they desire it for their own life? Two evenings ago I asked Pravina, a ten-year-old, if she wanted a family some day. Her head shook drastically as she puckered her face with a look of disgust. It seemed, to her, “mother” was the last thing she desired to be. I don’t blame her. Why would Pravina aim to be a mother when she has never experienced a truly loving touch, cradled hold, or gentle “goodnight” mother whispers in her ears before bed? I watched as Pravina’s eyes pooled with tears—a reaction she quickly buried behind a wall of exterior toughness as she grabbed a stack of my photos to divert her attention. Her internal pain was so obviously overwhelming; she had to convince herself not to feel at all. I tried to hug her, but she wouldn’t hug back. I wrapped my arms around her waistline even tighter, but her arms remained stiff at her sides—her eyes glancing up and away from me.

When Pravina left my room, I buried my face in the long scarf around my neck. I wanted to run after Pravina, but I couldn’t think of a word to say to her. How do you explain hope to an orphan? How do explain the comforting love of a Heavenly father when the reality of a father is void? I was left in my room with insurmountable pain. I couldn’t even think of a single word to pray. I wanted to cry out, but I was speechless. Overburdened. Emotionally collapsed.

My mind began to revert to the words of Kay Warren, an adoption advocate, who so beautifully stated that we have to stop questioning what is so wrong with the world and start questioning, “God, what is so wrong with me? What is so wrong with me that I am not seriously disturbed by what I see?” We must be, she says, “seriously disturbed and gloriously ruined.”

When we shed our apathy, our ignorance, our desire to remain naïve to prevent inevitable pain from ensuing, we begin to see and experience the very pain that Jesus himself is burdened by. Jesus who told us in the familiar passage in Mark 8 that, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Jesus left Heaven to die on a cross because He was so hurt and disturbed by our pain and our lack of hope. And if we truly love Him, we would do the same. You cannot take up your cross unless you are willing to die on it. If we really belong to the Lord, we will pay whatever price it costs. We will be willing to be gloriously ruined for the Kingdom. We will be seriously disturbed by the cry of the orphan. Disturbed by the very things that disturb Jesus. We will be weary unless we “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute” (Prov. 31:8).

How do we find ourselves gloriously ruined? How do we advocate for children half-a-world and an ocean away from us? Bono of U2 recently spoke on the absence of international boundaries the church must have. He said, “We cannot ignore the needs of our brothers and sisters overseas—not if we are Christians.” The next orphan we encounter may be in India or Malawi, Russia or China. The next orphan also might be just miles—or steps away. With 143 million orphans in the world this very moment, the sheer thought is overwhelming. The issue is vast; the problem is a tremendously large. But we can start with ceasing to ignore what disturbs us most. We can face what burdens us and start with surrender—asking the God who is shares our pain to let us be a part of His story of hope. Even when hope is so small it seems like a dimly lit half-flame fighting to stay alive. A process that, no doubt, is painful, but as a friend of mine so poignantly put it, “a painful privilege.”

James 1:27

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress."