TWO BABES IN A MANGER
In 1994, two Americans answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach in Russia. They were invited to teach at many places including a large orphanage. About 100 boys and girls who had been abandoned, abused, and left in the care of a government- run program were in the orphanage. The two Americans relate the following story in their own words:
It was nearing the holiday season, 1994, time for our orphans to hear, for the first time, the traditional story of Christmas. We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem.
Finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where the Baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger. Throughout the story, the children and orphanage staff sat in amazement as they listened. Some sat on the edges of their stools, trying to grasp every word. Completing the story, we gave the children three small pieces of cardboard to make a crude manger. Each child was given a small paper square, cut from yellow napkins I had brought with me. No colored paper was available in the city. Following instructions, the children tore the paper and carefully laid strips in the manger for straw. Small squares of flannel, cut from a worn-out nightgown an American lady was throwing away as she left Russia, were used for the baby's blanket. A doll-like baby was cut from tan felt we had brought from the United States. The orphans were busy assembling their manger as I walked among them to see if they needed any help.
All went well until I got to one table where little Misha sat. He looked to be about 6 years old and had finished his project. As I looked at the little boy's manger, I was startled to see not one, but two babies in the manger. Quickly, I called for the translator to ask the lad why there were two babies in the manger. Crossing his arms in front of him and looking at this completed manger scene, the child began to repeat the story very seriously.
For such a young boy, who had only heard the Christmas story once, he related the happenings accurately--until he came to the part where Mary put the Baby Jesus in the manger. Then Misha started to ad-lib. He made up his own ending to the story as he said, "And when Maria laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay. I told him I have no mamma and I have no papa, so I don't have any place to stay. Then Jesus told me I could stay with Him. But I toldHim I couldn't, because I didn't have a gift to give Him like everybody else did. But I wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept Him warm, that would be a good gift. So I asked Jesus, ‘If I keep You warm, will that be a good enough gift?’ And Jesus told me, ‘If you keep Me warm, that will be the best gift anybody ever gave me.’"
"So I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and He told me I could stay with Him---for always." As little Misha finished his story, his eyes brimmed full of tears that splashed down his little cheeks. Putting his hand over his face, his head dropped to the table and his shoulders shook as he sobbed and sobbed. The little orphan had found Someone who would never abandon nor abuse him, Someone who would stay with him--FOR ALWAYS.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Saturday, December 03, 2005
During this Season...
I want to share something that really moved me greatly last Christmas. It is part of a post from a group of families adopting from Ukraine. Please bear with me, as it is long, and feel free to share with others.
*****
Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:26 am
For all my brave words…tonight is turning out to be very hard for me. I have been crying for the children who will be around our table and our Christmas tree next year, wondering if they are cold or hungry or lonely this Christmas, and cry harder as I write these words. Has anybody made them feel loved or special? Do they know that they are God's beautiful children and that He loves them even more than Stuart and I do? I can't sleep, wanting to have them safe here, where they will have love, food, warmth, clothes ... Red velveteen dresses and warm woolen sweaters ... Sweet Christmas cookies ... Dolls, bicycles, and a jolly train running in a circle under the Christmas tree ... A snuggle on the sofa with Stuart and me as we read them the beautiful story in the Gospel of Luke about how Jesus was born in a manger and the shepherds heard the angels sing and came to visit Him ... Tonight they are in an orphanage wondering if anybody will ever care enough to adopt them, and don't know how hard Stuart and I are working to get everything done so both governments will let us have them as our own children, to be tucked into warm, soft beds in our house after we dress them in their soft, warm red plaid flannel nighties. We will sing Silent Night to them and feel so blessed that they are ours.
But this year they don't know any of this. They have no idea that somebody in far away America already loves them and is plowing through all that paperwork required to get them out of the orphanage and into a loving family that is theirs forever. For them, it's just another cold Christmas Eve in an impoverished orphanage still burdened by the heritage of their country's decades of communism. Is there any chance they have even gotten an extra orange to call their Christmas feast?
Do any others of you feel that the wait for our precious children is harder than pregnancy? At least when you are pregnant, you have a reasonable expectation of a particular date when your child will be in your arms. You know that the little one you are carrying is safe, warmed by your own blood and fed by the food and vitamins you choose carefully with your little one's health in mind. How many of our friends have given up smoking and alcohol *before* trying to get pregnant because they cared about their child's health! We in the US take it for granted that a loving mother gives up these as well as caffeine and other harmful things, and starts taking extra vitamins! I took prescription folic acid (a B vitamin) for years, hoping to have my body well stocked with it for the child I hoped to carry but never conceived.
But our angels in the orphanages over there have so often been born to mothers who didn't care that they were giving them FAS as they guzzled vodka all through their pregnancy, or who were too poor to buy good food, let alone vitamins, to ensure that their babies would be born healthy, without any of the defects that a lack of folic acid or other vitamins can cause in the precious fetus. Our precious angels are not getting the start in life so many of us planned for our children.
Or they were starved, beaten, inadequately clothed, left alone in houses with no wood or coal for heat, where nobody had even cared enough to cultivate a vegetable garden. Or they were abandoned at birth just because they had something as simple to repair as a cleft palate or clubfoot.
Tonight we remember that Our Lord was born to a young girl in impoverished Palestine. She had no place but an animals' feeding trough in a barn to lay Him in, and only the dirty hay the animals had drooled in to soften its edges for Him. She may have been too poor to have all the fresh fruits and vegetables that we consider essential to good health. She spent the end of her pregnancy trudging the primitive trail from Nazareth to Bethlehem, then brought us the Son of God!
We will be parents to children who were born in heart-breaking circumstances. Some of them have been terribly abused and neglected before the social workers took them away from their disgraceful families and placed them in orphanages that sometimes hardly qualify as good homes--even when the staff care and want to make the orphanage as good as possible for the childen. It will be our job to restore as much of their childhood and health to them as possible, and above all, to love them with all our hearts.
Dorine
*****
In some ways, I am so very jealous of this woman who was able to so eloquently say what I feel in my heart. There are nights I go to sleep wondering if the child we will bring home someday is warm enough or has had enough food. I have been completely unable to do any fundraising since May because of starting school, and Eric not being in a job that has allowed me to use a bit of 'seed money' for fundraisers. (I'm not blaming him for anything...I'm just sad.)
Now that it's Christmas again, I want so very much to begin fundraisers, but I just don't know how to do them without the support of family. It makes me so angry that almost everyone we know is completely unsupportive of our heart's desire. Brian & Courtney and Aunt Marjorie, THANK YOU for being supportive of us! I think you guys are the only ones who HAVE been.
*****
Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:26 am
For all my brave words…tonight is turning out to be very hard for me. I have been crying for the children who will be around our table and our Christmas tree next year, wondering if they are cold or hungry or lonely this Christmas, and cry harder as I write these words. Has anybody made them feel loved or special? Do they know that they are God's beautiful children and that He loves them even more than Stuart and I do? I can't sleep, wanting to have them safe here, where they will have love, food, warmth, clothes ... Red velveteen dresses and warm woolen sweaters ... Sweet Christmas cookies ... Dolls, bicycles, and a jolly train running in a circle under the Christmas tree ... A snuggle on the sofa with Stuart and me as we read them the beautiful story in the Gospel of Luke about how Jesus was born in a manger and the shepherds heard the angels sing and came to visit Him ... Tonight they are in an orphanage wondering if anybody will ever care enough to adopt them, and don't know how hard Stuart and I are working to get everything done so both governments will let us have them as our own children, to be tucked into warm, soft beds in our house after we dress them in their soft, warm red plaid flannel nighties. We will sing Silent Night to them and feel so blessed that they are ours.
But this year they don't know any of this. They have no idea that somebody in far away America already loves them and is plowing through all that paperwork required to get them out of the orphanage and into a loving family that is theirs forever. For them, it's just another cold Christmas Eve in an impoverished orphanage still burdened by the heritage of their country's decades of communism. Is there any chance they have even gotten an extra orange to call their Christmas feast?
Do any others of you feel that the wait for our precious children is harder than pregnancy? At least when you are pregnant, you have a reasonable expectation of a particular date when your child will be in your arms. You know that the little one you are carrying is safe, warmed by your own blood and fed by the food and vitamins you choose carefully with your little one's health in mind. How many of our friends have given up smoking and alcohol *before* trying to get pregnant because they cared about their child's health! We in the US take it for granted that a loving mother gives up these as well as caffeine and other harmful things, and starts taking extra vitamins! I took prescription folic acid (a B vitamin) for years, hoping to have my body well stocked with it for the child I hoped to carry but never conceived.
But our angels in the orphanages over there have so often been born to mothers who didn't care that they were giving them FAS as they guzzled vodka all through their pregnancy, or who were too poor to buy good food, let alone vitamins, to ensure that their babies would be born healthy, without any of the defects that a lack of folic acid or other vitamins can cause in the precious fetus. Our precious angels are not getting the start in life so many of us planned for our children.
Or they were starved, beaten, inadequately clothed, left alone in houses with no wood or coal for heat, where nobody had even cared enough to cultivate a vegetable garden. Or they were abandoned at birth just because they had something as simple to repair as a cleft palate or clubfoot.
Tonight we remember that Our Lord was born to a young girl in impoverished Palestine. She had no place but an animals' feeding trough in a barn to lay Him in, and only the dirty hay the animals had drooled in to soften its edges for Him. She may have been too poor to have all the fresh fruits and vegetables that we consider essential to good health. She spent the end of her pregnancy trudging the primitive trail from Nazareth to Bethlehem, then brought us the Son of God!
We will be parents to children who were born in heart-breaking circumstances. Some of them have been terribly abused and neglected before the social workers took them away from their disgraceful families and placed them in orphanages that sometimes hardly qualify as good homes--even when the staff care and want to make the orphanage as good as possible for the childen. It will be our job to restore as much of their childhood and health to them as possible, and above all, to love them with all our hearts.
Dorine
*****
In some ways, I am so very jealous of this woman who was able to so eloquently say what I feel in my heart. There are nights I go to sleep wondering if the child we will bring home someday is warm enough or has had enough food. I have been completely unable to do any fundraising since May because of starting school, and Eric not being in a job that has allowed me to use a bit of 'seed money' for fundraisers. (I'm not blaming him for anything...I'm just sad.)
Now that it's Christmas again, I want so very much to begin fundraisers, but I just don't know how to do them without the support of family. It makes me so angry that almost everyone we know is completely unsupportive of our heart's desire. Brian & Courtney and Aunt Marjorie, THANK YOU for being supportive of us! I think you guys are the only ones who HAVE been.
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