by Roy Exum
posted November 4, 2009
 Roy Exum |
So today, as yet another glorious autumn day full of sunshine and pretty leaves and blue skies reminds us to "be thankful for the saucer because our cup has over-flowed," allow me to bring it to mind that right now there are 313 of God's children in the state of Tennessee whose bags are packed, who are waiting at the door with their jackets already buttoned, ready to go.
These foster kids, who have been cleared by the courts and desperately need to be adopted, have no takers. These are kids nobody wants. In a brutal but poignant story that appeared in the Nashville Tennessean the other day, the reason was pretty explicit.
One paragraph read, "Of these children, 81 percent are between the ages of 13 and 18, and 15 percent are between the ages of 9 and 13. Only 9 percent, 13 children, are under the age of 9. This year, 986 children have been adopted from foster care in Tennessee."
I can only imagine the "baggage" that these remaining 313 children carry. The broken homes, the fights, the courts, the tough fallacy that they are "too old"; it has to be terrible. But in the "rulebook" many of us carry around is the very clear instruction, "What you do to the least of them you also do unto Me."
This is national adoption month. Tonight there wil be a special prayer service at the Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church to pray for millions of children around the world who need a home. The 313 "unwanted" kids from Tennessee will be among those mentioned. Anyone who is thinking of adopting a child, or praying for one to be adopted, will be welcomed.
In Connecticut they are ringing the church bells at 6 p.m. on Monday nights this month, hoping someone will hear, and wonder, and then maybe act. Elsewhere across the country there are other efforts, each and all in an effort to salvage young lives in the way one couple, Jason and Lalena Fayre, have done in Denver.
Jason is blind so he was forced to look real hard for the right child. In the way that things sometimes go, there came word from India about a five-year-old "wild child" at an orphanage who had to be kept in a cage. The child was blind but also couldn't speak. He'd been left at the hospital steps as a baby and had been in a cage ever since.
Can you imagine? In India the kid in the cage is at the absolute bottom of the food chain. But "Pandu" was who Jason had been searching for and, when the Denver couple showed up to - quite literally - open the cage, you have to know there wasn't a whole lot of red tape blocking the hasty procedure.
Some who had watched the child thought the Fayres were just as crazy as the kid in the crate, but, no, Jason knew instinctively the child would do okay - he had his father's eyes. You see, in Denver Jason is a teacher who helps other blind people become self sufficent. He was already equipped with the patience and skill and gentle laughter Pandu so desperately needs.
Several weeks ago the blind father and blind son spent a delightful day, as we saw on CBS, when Jason taught Pandu how to pick out a pumpkin. And guess what? Pandu is already going to school - a mainstream preschool that he adores. My gracious, wouldn't you after being in a cage with scant human contact for the first five years of your life? And guess what else? He has started to talk ... that's right, no one thought he could talk in all the years he spent in the cage, but he can. Yes, he can, and he can laugh, too.
What Lalena and Jason Fayre have done is absolutely incredible. Lalena told the TV reporter about the almost mystical "connection" between Pandu and her husband, but, let's face it, in this case the adoption is a nice way to say the Denver couple absolutely saved a small Indian boy's life.
Maybe there are some other lives yet to be saved, kids whose cages may not be made of steel but whose hearts are every bit as trapped and ignored as little Pandu Fayre's once was. I believe there are 313 kids like that in Tennessee. They've got their bags packed. The paperwork is done. They are ready to go.
Maybe, just maybe, some will get the chance. That is why we ought to pray for all of God's children tonight.
royexum@aol.com
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