Sunday, January 31, 2010

Ronel

My heart breaks for the Haitian orphans. Instead of the road being made easier for them to join forever families, it's being made harder. It seemed for a while that it would be made easy but it's turning out to be the opposite.

Incredibly some of the stumbling blocks are from UNICEF. Read this post for a story on Ronel, an orphan trying to get home to his family waiting in the US. It also details UNICEF's stance which is basically that children should be kept in their original culture, even if it's in an institution.

Part of me gets why they would like to keep cultural heritage intact in a child's life. But most of me cannot understand how an institution is better than a Mommy and a Daddy- even if they are a different culture/ colour/ nationality.

Ronel's Mommy-to-be, Debra, has a blog and I can't stop looking back to see there is an update on Ronel. This is one boy's story and I know it will have a happy ending but there are so many other orphans at risk and waiting. Waiting.

All I can do is pray and thank God that when we do He moves mountains. Isn't He just the best?


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3 comments:

Gail said...

Wow, I went to both of those links and had a good read. I can only pray and hope that the children who have homes and families ready and waiting will get home quickly.

I don't really understand UNICEF's intervention in this instance. I wonder if there is mass confusion because of the extent of the earthquake - that there is no clear leadership so they have just blanket-ruled it?? Are they really unhappy with adopting across borders??

Only God can move mountains. This is one huge mountain. As a global community we need to pray, pray, pray.

Thanks for sharing the links.

Tea said...

My heart and prayers go out to these children too. I understand the idea behind wanting children to remain in their birth culture, but the truth is that our deepest needs as people are for God, love, acceptance, security, family..those kinds of things. Keeping culture alive is great, but if a person is dying inside because their core human needs are not being met, culture doesn't mean anything.

Jodi said...

My heart breaks for all the orphans, and all the people, in Haiti. Such devastation...it's so sad!

I'm going to go check out that link!

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