Recently I have discovered a new found love:
Spoken Word Poetry
I found this a bit weird at first, as I never really liked poetry
But I watched more and more YouTube videos of it
And I began to understand it and connect with it more and more
Which inspired this poem
While it would probably be better if you heard me read it with all my emotions
I'm not much one for performing
Or recording me talking to myself...
I hope you enjoy it anyway, and who knows? Maybe I will record it at some point
Romanian Orphans
People find out I spent my summer helping orphans in Romania.
I tell them that it was the most amazing thing I've ever done.
I tell them that leaving them to come back here was the
hardest thing I've ever done.
I show them a picture of one of my favorites.
(Only one of my favorites because really, I love them all
All hundred some-odd of them
And I could spend hours telling you about each and every one
of them
I can show you a picture and tell you their name
I can tell you their physical challenges in life
And I can tell you how in spite of it all,
They are some of the happiest
people I have ever seen in my life)
But people aren’t interesting in hearing the details--
They bemoan the conditions these children live in
They say how wonderful it must have been for them to have me there
They do not realize that I feel blessed to have had the chance
To get to know each and every one of them
Personally.
Individually.
~
They are not a statistic.
They are not what defines Romania.
They are not a social problem.
They are children
Children who deserve to be loved with every ounce of your
heart and then some
Because when you love these kids, your heart isn’t all you are
loving them with
God is using you
He is giving you His love to pass along to them
Because I did not choose to go to Romania
I just knew
I just knew that Romania was where I was supposed to go
I didn’t know what I was getting into
But I went anyways
I was scared out of my mind because I only knew a few words of Romanian
But I went anyways
I was terrified that I would not be able to love the children
like they needed me to
But I went anyways
And God made me enough
~
When I walked into a hospital room
And saw a little boy about two years old,
His skin covered in sores and boils and scabs,
And I could do nothing more than sing to him to try and make
his life more tolerable
I realized God didn’t send me there for him
He sent me there for me
So that I could learn
Learn that this little boy is not a statistic
He is not a problem with society
He is a little boy who just wants someone to love him, to
touch him
That little boy was the last child I saw before I left Romania
And I didn’t get to spend that time with him for him
God gave me that time with him for me
So that I would know that He is watching out for that little
boy
And just as He used me
He will use someone else
Because now, He doesn’t need to push me anymore
He doesn’t need to nudge me into going halfway around the
world
I’m already planning to do that again next summer
Because these children are not statistics
They are not a problem to be fixed
They are children to be loved
And held
And taught
That they are wanted
~
“I have parents, they just don’t want me”
That is what I heard a boy say this summer
(in Romanian, of course)
He is eight years old
He spends three days a week in the hospital getting dialysis
And he can throw some gnarly tantrums when he’s sick of being
in the hospital
But then
You see him at the orphanage
And he is king
And you imagine the life that he could have
If he had a new kidney
If he had a family
If he could go to school without missing every other day
~
“They do not want your handouts, they want your hands out”
That is something one of us was told about what we would do this
summer
That is what everyone needs to understand
These children do not want your money
They do not want you to try and fix them
They want your love
They want you to want them
So when people find out that I spent my summer working in an
orphanage in Romania
They ask me what I did
I tell them:
These children have enough food
They have clothes
And medicine
And someone to change their diaper
So what did I do?
I held them
I sang to them
I taught them how to walk
I taught them how to talk
I laid on the floor and played pretend nap time with them
When the workers told the girls with heart problems, they
weren’t allowed to jump on the trampoline
I jumped for them
When the girl with no hips who couldn’t walk wanted to play
on the slide
I carried her to the top and I caught her at the bottom
When the girl with hearing problems who can’t talk yet wanted
a life size doll
I laid on the floor and let her position me and take off my
glasses and turn my hair into a knot
When the boy who is blind and epileptic and has cerebral
palsy loves to be spun in circles
I took him out of his wheelchair and I held him while I spun
until I was faint
When the boys who are autistic were fighting over the same
toy
I took it away and gave them each a new one
When the girl at the hospital has only one quasi-normal limb
I took a crayon and put it between her toes so she could
color
When the boy at the hospital with burns all down his legs
could barely walk
I found an inflatable beach ball and played keep-it-off-the-floor
with him
~
What did I do this summer?
I played with children
I told them that I love them
I showed them that I love them
What am I going to do next summer?
I am going to Vietnam
Or China
Or Ghana
Sri Lanka
Cambodia
Peru
Bali
Ecuador
Uganda
Costa Rica
I am going where there are children who need to be loved
Where there are children who just want to be held
Where there are children in horrible physical conditions
So they find joy in the simplest of pleasures
Where the best smile I have seen is a boy who has never seen
someone else smile
Where one of the sweetest boys I have known has head trauma
because he was abused
Where the sassiest girl I have known cannot run because her
heart barely works
~
People hear me talk about my children
And they think I’m too young to have kids
And I tell them, no, I am not their mother
But I have over a hundred children
Halfway around the world
That I think about every day
And I love them as much as I am humanly capable
And then some
I have pictures
Do you want to see?
I have stories
Do you want to hear?
Will you listen beyond the cute little boy with kidney
problems?
Will you listen when I get to the boy who has burn scars on
his face?
When I get to the boy whose head is misshapen from
hydrocephaly?
The boy who will never be able to do anything for his own
physical well-being?
The girl who has no muscles and has developed an aversion to
human touch?
The boy who outgrew his crib and now is permanently deformed?
Will you listen beyond the ones who are easy to love?
Will you listen when I get to the girl who almost never
responds to stimuli?
The boy who will never say your name?
The girl who will never be able to recognize you
Because she’s never actually seen you?
These are my children
They are all adorable to me
They are all easy for me to love
Because they are mine
And I can barely remember a time when I did not love these
children as easily as I can blink
~
Leaving them was the hardest thing I’ve ever done
But trying to make others understand is a close second
Because they are not a statistic
They are not a social problem
They do not need to be fixed
They do not need to be brought to America
“Because that makes everything better”
They just need to be loved
And before you go and poke fingers at how they do it “over
there”
Remember this:
In 2012, there were estimated nearly 400 thousand children in
American foster care
Close to half of the children who left foster care that year,
were the ones who had only been in it for less than one year
During that year, nearly a quarter of a million children
entered foster care
And before you think, “oh, they’re in foster care, that’s
okay, that’s better than an orphanage”
Remember this:
15% were in institutions or group homes
1% had run away
1% of nearly 400 thousand?
That is four thousand
children who had run away
54% were in care for one or more years
15% for 3 or more years
56% of those were a race other than White
~
So when you hear I spent the summer helping children in
Romania,
Forget the part where I said Romania
Because this isn’t “a Romanian problem”
This is a world problem
Do not bemoan to me how you wish you could do something like
that
Because you know what?
There are places in your own community who need volunteers to
love children
To give them attention
To listen to what they have to say
To let them know they are loved
and wanted
You don’t have to go halfway around the world to find
children who need your love
Just look around you
They are there
Waiting for you to notice them
The source for the statistics included can be viewed here:
