@ Remember the boy who weighed 4kg at the age of 10? Here’s what happened to him after ADOPTION

Adoption does have a negative impact. I don’t believe you can see it from the outside. Looking in it will unquestionably alter your life life.

It will not be able to penetrate your life without ripping, shredding and tearing. It comes into your home with your permission and establishes itself in your heart and mind. Your living room floor, kitchen counter, family car and dining room table will all be littered with suitcases. As a result of adoption, it will be a complete disaster. It will completely demolish you, ruin you and force you to look around with wide eyes.

Occasionally I become a sobbing mess and yearn to return to my youth when I was blind and innocent to the world. But I’m well aware that I don’t truly want to and that I’m unable to. When I traveled to Eastern Europe to adopt my son, Israel, who had spent his first four years of life in a crib in the deformities Department of a Bulgarian orphanage. Before being adopted at the age of four, I prayed that my eyes would be opened and they were and my heart was shattered into a million pieces and I can no longer go through each day without thinking.

Kids are dying.

My ability to worship in Church, leave my children off at school or make a run to target is hampered by the whispered phrase, Kids are dying. Children are dying. I want to scream as I sit calmly and watch people go about their everyday lives with barbecues, shopping trips and soccer games. And I want to say, Kids are dying. People comment on our children’s adoption and remark, wow, that’s awesome.

But then they continue on with their lives. I want to scream. Kids are dying. At the top of my voice. I sit here whispering, kids are dying and no one truly hears me because if they did, they would know and they would be grieving as well.

They see the flesh and blood example of Israel and the photographs of the orphanage and they shed a tear before walking back to their Monday morning jobs. Instead, they continue to live and the children may continue to die. So many days, I battle with the knowledge of children who spend their lives in institutions, of babies who are born without medical attention and of infants who are taught not to cry, laugh, or smile at any point in their lives. Children confined to cribs, slamming their heads against the bars to self soothe, gnawing their fingers till they bleed, rocking, ceaselessly and fed a handy liquid diet are all too common.

The load of knowledge falls on my shoulders, and when I try to unpack the information in front of friends, family, or the congregation, they grin and change the conversation to something less heavy.

And yet this great burden causes my knees to weaken, my shoulders to ache and my heart to break even harder. When I returned home, I found a genuine, breathing reminder of what I had witnessed in Eastern Europe, and his existence reminds me every single day that kids are dying. I took everything out of the box. A year ago today I walked out of the Bulgarian airport and into a world of crushing heartache and sadness. This is what I remember every day.

One year ago, my eyes and heart were awakened to a world that was different from my American middle class upbringing and culture. One year ago, I sat in a sweltering stuffy orphanage with no air conditioning cradling, a stenchy, urine soaked infant with stained teeth. I left behind my ability to turn a blind eye in a hellhole orphanage in Bulgaria. A year ago today, I left behind thousands of other orphans who are no less deserving of our attention than Israel. A year ago, one year ago, I looked at my beautiful, comfortable life and felt humiliation and grief, and that day marked the beginning of the end of my life.

As usual, every choice, decision, and step I make is influenced by my adoption experience. A small voice says. Kids are dying just as I’m beginning to establish a new normal for myself. Kids are dying, a small voice whispers to me as I fold laundry and head to work. As I fall asleep, the small voice continues to say, Kids are dying in the dark.

I frequently feel lost and helpless, so I’m on my knees, praying for guidance. I don’t know the solution, so I’m on my knees, praying. Trauma Israel was subjected to the most appalling levels of neglect and misery that one can imagine. Every day has a few moments that are tinged with his trauma. Many of his judgments are based on fear and survival instincts, which is understandable surprisingly persistent.

Trauma has been shown to alter the structure and chemical function of the nervous system. We’ve watched him move swiftly through the developmental stages as he recovered from his injuries. Israel came to us from an orphanage eight months ago, and he has grown from a size 18 to 24 months to a size four toddler in that time. Beginning with infant toys such as shape sorters and stacking blocks, he’s progressed to playing with automobiles and trucks, and he is particularly fond of musical instruments. He likes Church because they have a worship band, and if they ever decide to go on tour, he plans to volunteer as a roadie for them.

His lack of exposure had resulted in him knowing just about 20 words when we first took him up. Now he knows hundreds of words and can sing his ABCs and is enrolled in kindergarten. Israel, on the other hand, is my living and breathing example, though I left thousands of others behind. In addition, virtually every week, a photo of a child who has been removed from the adoption registry because he has died is posted in one of the adoption groups on Facebook, and when I look at my child, I see his enormous potential, and I’m so grateful that I was able to see past myself in order to bring him home.

Shunt seems alarming, and I never have seen anything like this are just a few of the comments I’ve heard from specialists and doctors about the case of medical neglect.

I’ve been witnessing. Israel, who was extremely undernourished and suffering from a spine that was trying to protrude through his skin, was forced to rely on a liquid diet for the sake of convenience. Understanding that Israel was not supposed to live to be five years old is essential. Children with these difficulties typically die before they become a burden in Eastern Europe. Yet Israel did not die in this situation.

He was not meant to live with such limitations, and as a result he was not cared for in a compassionate or humane manner. I know it’s difficult to meet him and look at him and realize what he’s been through, but please take a moment to gaze at him. Examine him beyond the smile and the muscular figure, beyond the fashionable outfit and the incredibly cool wheelchair. Take a step back and consider what love can accomplish in just eight short months. I want you to understand that this little child has a message for you and that he should serve as a daily reminder to you as well.

Little boys and little girls just like him will not live to reach their 6th birthday as will many other children. They will not embrace in the arms of a mother as they die. Instead, they will be left on their own. Moreover, I’m crying as I type this because I need you to look at him and understand that he was chosen from birth to die. He was placed in an orphanage alongside other children when he was born and many of the children who were left behind have died or have been relocated to other homes and to be moved is to die because 85% of these youngsters die within a year of being admitted to a mental health facility or home with Thoracic Spina bifida.

Israel was born without feeling from the waist down. He is in love with a woman who has the same condition as him. He was placed in an orphanage at birth, where he was deprived of everything, saved the bare necessities of life. He had survived in this horrific environment and he was approaching the age of four. He was suffering from a variety of medical conditions, many of which I had never heard of before.

When I saw him on Facebook, I should have used the opportunity to express how adorable he was and to wish him the best in finding his forever family. Instead, God placed his tiny face on my heart and I dreamed about him and he appeared on my Facebook news page on a consistent basis. As a result, we felt it would be a wonderful idea and chose him as our son from among the millions of orphans in the world, a child who would never run, dance, or walk would be a rare breed, a youngster who would never be the son I had envisioned for myself, it was important to me to choose a child who had never experienced the warmth of the sun on his face or the breeze blowing through his hair.

Israel was confined to a single room and was never allowed to leave. And now the child I chose is sharing with me the wonder of a fleeting moment in time.

He has taught me that true love is not conditional and that true beauty and character are not found on the surface of things. When I look at Israel from the outside, I see nothing but a shell. His heart is gorgeous, strong and brimming with possibilities. I’ve been really fortunate to observe a youngster who had been enslaved by his circumstances, be set free and allowed to demonstrate his true worth and beauty. And now, when I go about my daily routine, I’m conflicted.

I’ve chosen a child for you. Picking and choosing implies that someone else was passed over for selection, and the fact that you were not chosen implies that kids are dying. The orphan issue is a crisis for us all. When it comes to adoption, there’s never enough money, enough time, or the perfect time. We must rise to the occasion and respond to this demand.