Our Family

[Note: This is kind of a long post. In fact, it's a really long post. About four times longer than what I normally put up here. The reason is I worked a really long time on this one and believe it should be read as a continuous narrative, not broken up into little parts. With that in mind, I ask that you read it that way. If you don't have time now, come back to it later. Print it out to read it some evening. It might take you a little while to get through, but without understanding this, the rest of the stories here are just cheeky anecdotes and amusing tales. So please, read and enjoy, and maybe even pass it off to a friend when you're finished.]

 

You don't know what it's like.

Lets just start with that as the premise. You can't sympathize, you can't relate, you can't know how it feels. You simply don't know. You come from a life and a culture that is so foreign to the challenges and difficulties and the struggles that are part of the fabric of life here. But in understanding what goes on here there is no way to separate the individual threads from the whole tapestry. What I will be writing today I've already tried in the last several weeks to explain to the closest of family, to the best of friends, all the way to the strangest of strangers. The only way I have found to adequately explain it is by laying down the premise that you simply won't understand.

You don't know what it's like.

That is the admonition I have for you today. I want to warn you that this is not something that is intellectually out of reach as if I were explaining rocket science to you. It's not something like modern art that you either appreciate or think is unintelligible. It is as if I were asking you to hear colors, or draw with sounds. You have no adequate frame of reference for even understanding what that would mean. You're picturing yourself drawing with sounds right now, but I assure that you're doing it wrong.

Because you can't even begin to know what it's like.

The reason for this is that I'm going to tell you what our kids did for Christmas. Rest assured, it's nothing shocking. We weren't doing animal sacrifices or getting matching tattoos or something salacious. But at the same time, it should be absolutely puzzling and alarming: We sent the kids to be with their families. For the end of December and Christmas the kids got to spend two weeks with their mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins.

Did you hear that? I sure did. That was the sound of you brain saying, “What!?! I thought you ran an orphanage, not a boarding school or summer camp. What do you mean send then them to their families? Their parents?” Let me try to calm you down some.

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It has been three years since we last sent the kids to visit their families. In other words, this has happened before, and sending them off to visit is not a new thing. Also, even though these kids have been orphaned, at least everybody has a family member somewhere. There were only a few kids that stayed behind here at the orphanage. One group was Jose's family. They family they have is a grandmother who treated them beyond horribly and an uncle. They have only seen their mother, who is mentally retarded, on several occasions and have no idea where she is.

Then there are these boys (who themselves are not related). They have no relatives here in orphanage and because they would be visiting alone we deemed it best they wait a few years till they are older. The exception is Victor (back) who has a relative that lives in the neighborhood and he sees her often.

Then there are some who's relatives live so far away and it is impossible to contact them. They all got to spend the break here at the orphanage with us.

In order for the rest of the kids to be able to leave to be with their relatives, if they were younger (less than 14) they had to be with a kid from here older than that. That is how Muaparato (the short one) could leave with his brothers to stay with their uncle (the tall one). The safety of the kids was absolutely in mind and nobody went to stay with anybody in a dangerous situation.

This undoubtedly raises more questions. One question is, “Why are these kids in an orphanage if they have family to live with?” That is an excellent question and the only one that I can't seem to be able to answer, at least, not in a way that anyone has found satisfactory.

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One reason that kids can come to an orphanage is mistreatment by their family. For the kids here, this mistreatment often after they have been orphaned and living with a relative. One such girl was sent to live with an uncle who, through being terribly abusive, drove her legitimately crazy. Her late father had a close friend that, after some time had passed, went to check on her. He found that she had been driven so crazy she was wandering around eating her own shoes. He took it upon himself to take her away to care for her and eventually brought her to us many years ago. She spent her holiday with him and they consider each other family in their own right.

Kids that have been mistreated that are now older know enough that they can look back and disassociate a verbally and physically abusive family member with the alcohol that drove him to that.

Even with the years that has passed, these girls said that everyday during their visit they would sneak out of the house in the evening before their dad started drinking and came back only after he was done. Often during their time there, meals consisted of just rice as the money he would earn would go first to his vices. In the years that they have been at the orphanage, nothing has changed in him, the girls sadly told me.

Still, while it may appear that some people have the means, but they just treat their children horribly. Felex and his family (above) came from one such home. He, his sister and brother went to stay with their mom and much older sister here in the city. (They have two siblings and who both passed through the orphanage, graduated, and are now working jobs.) When they were younger, their late father, even though he was a pastor, treated them poorly and refused to spend even a cent on them, withholding them from school and refusing medicine when they were sick.

Living in the orphanage is stark contrast from the lives they used to have. They are sent to school and all their needs are provided for. As they go back and visit, it is a chance for them to build bridges and to be a testimony and witness to their mother, who often sends unsolicited advice in the form of telling her sons to abandon school and telling her daughters to be sexually promiscuous in hopes of getting pregnant and landing a husband.

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There is a strange paradox that we are witness to at the orphanage. For a culture that places such a high view of family as a social safety net, life here is a sad and harsh reality that often prevents this ideal from being fulfilled. Imagine---a mother dies in sickness or in childbirth, and a father passes away or abandons the family for a second wife---the obstacles that must be overcome for merely survival. Children, if given the opportunity by their parents to start school, drop out at an extraordinary pace but for what are, here, considered to be ordinary reasons. Most often it will be the simple difficulties of day to day life---drought, floods, hunger, sickness, poverty. For some of our kids, they said that everyday while they were with their relatives they spent an average of three hours walking to, getting, and carrying back water. Imagine what time would be left for school if you day was consumed with just be able to have water to drink.

Instances of extreme poverty are factors for a child having to leave his family or be sent away. Its a decision that not many can understand. Its a decision that can actually result in the life or death of a child. When, in our province--- keeping in mind that nearly a quarter of children never reach the age of four---poverty, malnutrition, or sickness occur, sometimes sending away your child is the only thing that will ensure they survive.

There may be only one or two of you reading that understand the decision to send your son or daughter to live somewhere else. I am not talking about having your son to live with his grandmother so he can reside in a better school district. I'm not even thinking of sending your daughter off to cushy boarding school in Kenya as you take up missionary work in Southern Africa. Not even having your son or daughter live across town with a friend in a better neighborhood because of fear he will end up in a gang or she will end up in prostitution. I'm talking about whether you child simply has food.

This is Fransisco's family. His mom (pictured above carrying a baby) faced that decision. After their father died they were faced with no way to provide for themselves, no access to education, and worsening health due to near-fatal malnutrition. His youngest sister at the time (in the red shirt) had ringworm covering most her head. As for their middle sibling (in the green shirt), she wasn't much better off. Were one of them to come down with diarrhea, malaria, measles, dysentery, or some other ailment, the quality of living that comes with having a place in the orphanage could be the difference in saving their life.

In the case of Fransisco's family, you'll notice three other children in the picture. That is because shortly after he and his sisters came here, their mother remarried and started having more children. You'll also notice how incredible small these children are. The girl is six years old. The  twins are almost a year. All of them are incredible tiny and are in need of better diet and nutrition. Some of that is due to their mom being small in stature. Much of that is due to the difficulties of life.

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Before you make a comment about it being the problem in the first place and the lack of responsibility and so forth, you should know that having more children some times, but not all times, be the solution to the problem and not solely the cause of it. For the family, sending your kids away does not automatically mean the end of a drought or suddenly having access to food or medicine. It doesn't mean you life gets better.

Children sometimes amplify the problems of life, they don't create them. They will add visibility to insecurities about food. They will illustrate a parent's addiction to vice or sin. They will reveal a fathers promiscuity and selfishness that causes him to leave his family. For some of these most basic of life's needs, having children will temporarily increase problems such as hunger and lack of resources, but in the future they act as social security. Having seven kids gives the parents seven chances that one of them will “make it” and be able to provide for them in their old age. Most parents will sacrifice the burden of several years of hunger for the blessing of being taken care of later in life.

And while there are times that sending a child away may be a painfully difficult decision, other times it is a selfish one. Much more common for a child is to be sent to live with an uncle or cousin and to be raised there. However, this is functionally an exchange of charges rather than improving the life of the child. Many people all over the city are sent to live with these relatives not as adopted family, but as rented labor. In exchange, often times another family member will notice that you, having sent away you own children, have a vacancy or three in the house and sent their child to live with you.

This child functions not as a son or daughter but as a worker or laborer. Work and treatment that a parent would never place on their own child is now thrown upon this niece or nephew with often unrelenting fury. They are made to do all work in the house---laundry, cooking, cleaning, farming---while the relatives never lift a finger. This is often accompanied with horrible verbal and physical abuse. We have a member of our church living down the hill from us. Three of their children are living off with relatives, while they have four nieces and nephews staying with them that do absolutely everything in the home.

And this kind of attitude is very visible in the culture here. At least once a week somebody will come by inquiring if we can take in more children. Many times it is a man that will come by and explain how his sister died and orphaned her children and he needs help taking care of them. Those situations are hard because we just don't have the space or resources (funds) to take every request that comes. We know when the time is right God will clearly show us a child or a family to take in.

Other times, though, these requests are just downright absurd. Last week a lady came by and asked if I had space for her seven children. I asked what the circumstances were. Bless her for being honest, she gave a straightforward answer, “I'm tired of them.” I was a little shocked but pressed her to hear what she was tired of. “Seven children are a lot and I don't want to deal with them anymore.”

It is hard to classify any of these situations as more tragic than another---being orphaned, abandoned to a relative, bartered for labor, abused, mistreated, unwanted, denied food or schooling are all equally horrible. Just as tragic is when a child is living on their own in the streets. Whether it be by choice, as in escaping any of the aforementioned situations, or by edict of a family member, sometimes a child has no place to call his home.

That was the situation when we encountered Gabriel (pictured with his aunts). He spend his days more-or-less doing what he could to survive and his nights hiding in abandoned buildings. Not many children here have passed through that, and count it among their blessings.

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Finally, there was the question of just what exactly the kids would be going back to for their Christmas stays. That is part of the reason we wait till they are older and have enough judgment to keep themselves safe if that same uncle they used to live with tries to beat them or abuse them. Also, the kids contacted their relatives ahead of time so that a family wasn't faced with three or four more mouths to feed all of a sudden. Still, when the kids came back, there was one word that at least all of them used to describe their time: Suffering.

Kids talked about arriving at their family's farm, setting down their bags, and then being given a rake or hoe and sent out to work. Others talked about sleeping on floor (just like they used to before they came here) and waking up in the middle of the night to shake off the ants. I've already how one family spent three hours a day walking for water. That was an extreme case. The average kid took a little over an hour. Some kids talked about being in situation where they were told to eat less so that there would be leftovers for lunch the next day.

Most of the kids that were living here in the city prior to entering the orphanage (as opposed to coming from out in the country) left excited to see old friends that they had growing up. They came back disappointed, but not surprised, to find out that what friends they had left were no longer. For the boys, many of their friends now spend their days selling things in the market and their nights drinking and seeking out women. For the girls, their friends are pregnant or already caring for children of their own. Without them saying it, many of their friends lived a lifestyle so antithetical to theirs that our kids found these these behaviors foreign and unappealing to the lifestyle of following Christ.

So why would we send our kids back to that? Simply because we needed to. We needed them to be exposed life. What we have here in the orphanage is certainly real life, but it is very much removed from the trials and influences of their former lives. And for some that have become insensitive or ungrateful or entitled it allows an opportunity for them to remember what life use to be like and to be aware of the amazing grace they have been shown to have been rescued from that life.

We also sent them back to visit because of the strong attachment they still have to family. This hearkens back to that strange paradox I mentioned earlier: as strong of emphasis as is culturally placed on family and support, those same relatives will take in an orphaned child and treat them as second class or as an inconvenience. For the children that were living with just one parent (the other having died or abandoned the family) it is just impossible to care for anyone else when you yourself have no means of getting by. The kids need to be sent away for their own good.

For our kids, their relatives are extremely important to them. The kids see their family through a lens of grace and forgiveness and sometimes, when they become adults, reconcile with that same uncle that used to beat them or the same father who abandoned them or their grandmother who use to tell them they were unlovable and would never find a home in this world.

For the kids here that entered the orphanage primarily due to impossible difficult living conditions and constant necessity, you don't know what it is like to be told by your mom that is is better for you to live in an orphanage than to continue in my house. However unselfish or true that statement is, for a child it is never an easy thing to understand or come to grips with.

For children here that were mistreated, you don't know what it is like to be not wanted your own family. I'm not talking about being abandoned by a deadbeat dad. You don't know what it's like to be sent away with your siblings. To be treated as second-class because your mother's new husband sees you as bastard children. To be used as free labor. To have food or medicine withheld from you. To be told that if you want to eat you should comb the streets for trash or go out and beg. To have a family but be sent away you don't know where your next meal will come from. Sent away because you can't afford school. Sent away because malaria season is coming and you don't have access to medicine.

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You also can't imagine the desire these kids have to want to be part of that family they left. Even though they have been abandoned, mistreated, or left to care for themselves, it is still their family. When the end of the year came, our kids begged and pleaded to have this opportunity to continue and maintain the relationships they have with their relatives.

This is Gizela and her mom. Over the last year Gizela has been very active in trying to reach out to her mom and reconnect with her family. She has a brother that is being raised a muslim. The last year she has been inviting him to church, and he's been coming! Even these last several weeks since Gizela has left to study in Beira, her brother is still showing up to our little church. Gizela is rather shy about the subject, but reason she says for her interest and desire to repair relations with her family is simple. “I want them to know Jesus. They can't know Jesus if I don't tell them about him.”

Another reason for sending the children to visit was for them to come back with their primary family member. That afternoon we had a meeting with a room full of mothers, uncles, and grandparents. With the exception of two of them in the meeting, for many it was the first time coming to the orphanage since they brought their kids here. Not even once in four, six, ten years have they bothered to come by to see how their grandson, niece, cousin, son is doing! Our motivation was to encourage them and remind them that they are some of the most important people in the lives of our children, even if four or eight years have passed. Regardless if they are feeling shame or indifference, they should make an effort to maintain connections with their own family.

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Why would the kids be so excited about being with these relatives that left them in an orphanage? That's another part of the question you can't understand the answer to. The beauty of it is they're still children. One reason is they haven't had years to stew in anger or think about what might have been or wallow in self-pity or bask in pride having “made it on your own”.

More so than this, I can write that the only reason for them to be able to do that is that Jesus is redeeming the idea of family. Regardless of what a child experienced before coming to our orphanage---and there are a good number that came in too young to remember anything---we know that we are building a new picture of what it looks like to live as a family, to love each other, and model the gospel. A lot of times this picture looks a little smudged when put in practice. We fight, argue, borrow (read: steal) each others' clothes, and the rumor mill runs at 100mph. But I bet your family does that too. If your family was perfect it probably wouldn't be any fun.

But we love each other not because we are perfect (because we're not) but because we're family---and because Christ did the same thing for us. This is just not something we say, it's something we do. For the kids here, the bonds they are forging are stronger than the ones with their relatives. How do I know this? Because some of the kids were so happy to be back they cried. Yes, even some of the boys. Not because they knew that their plate would be full of food or water pumped from our well and leaving from the tap, but because when they got back the first things they wanted to do was hug the other kids here, to swap stories about their vacations, to share a pile of cashews they had brought back from the farm, to kick around the soccer ball.

It's not easy. It's hard. I constantly have to remind myself that the people we are serving, the kids we are raising, the family we are building, are full and abused and broken and abandoned kids that come from the fringes of society. But is is family. It takes work. As I said, we are building a family around Jesus, not around each other. Families built around each other look like what the kids left behind. Families built around Jesus look like what you find here: Not build around perfection, built around forgiveness and the Cross.

That's not to say that life goes on without any difficulties. Yes, there are still lots of problems. This isn't a self-righteous factory where we turn out perfect kids that do the right things and have memorized all the right Bible verses and have never missed Sunday school. People are still sinners and some kids here struggle greatly trying to reconcile the message of Grace and Hope that we teach here with everything they see going on in the world all around them. The difference here is that in solving the problems we look first to the cross for forgiveness.

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So when you sit back and ponder what our Christmas break, see it as the kids see it here. Don't become angry at "selfish" family members. Don't dwell in sadness and mourn over uncles or fathers that have beaten or mistreated their children. Don't shake your head in disbelief over condition of poverty and brokenness these kids escaped. Don't wonder why there could ever be reason to want to go back to that. Be happy for them for them and for the joy it was to spend time with their families and to visit relatives and maintain, and repair, relationships.

And continue to pray for the kids in this. Because they went back to visit doesn't mean that they were all welcomed into homes with open arms. Some were still called unwanted with their relatives "counting down the day until you leave here again." It doesn't mean that because they saw their relatives that their lives are now happy and full of joy. Life is still hard in Mozambique, and while it is drastically different in many ways, living is still hard in the orphanage. Aside from physical problems of food and health and expenses, there is an incredible social stigma put on anyone when it is found out you're from an orphanage. Some of our kids have friends in school that don't even know they live in an orphanage. It comes with the idea that your life is a torment and you pass all your days with just the most basic of necessities being met. There is no mark of pride saying "my parents died and my relatives didn't want me and sent me to be raised in an orphanage."

But God is redeeming that. These kids know and walk with Jesus. And redeeming doesn't mean making them happy and forget about everything they've come through and still have to deal with. It means saving, rescuing, liberating, restoring, not patching or covering up. The process is hard and still happening for some kids, and some struggle mightily with it. How do you reconcile the fact that you got sent to live in an orphanage while your sister didn't. Or how your parents more than had the means to support you and instead left you abandoned. There is no amount of mental gymnastics that can reconcile that. But God can redeem it.

That is our prayer as we live work for the lives of the kids that are here. Our hope is that Jesus transforms and saves these lives so that one day they will look around them and say, "The way I am provided for here, the family that adopted me as their own, and the God I've come to know and love are better than anything else that could have happened to me." Not for our sake, so we can boast and say look at all we've done, but solely for sake of Jesus, so we can boast and say look at all He has done.