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STUCK!
I should have waited for my “Wow….Just Wow” title or maybe I just need to brush up on my vocabulary skills….
I went to the STUCK documentary tonight. Before I start I want to get the most important part of this blog out there. If you feel like you want to do something to help the orphan and you feel helpless to do anything, take a moment and go to Petition for Change or text 67463 and sign the petition that they will be presenting to Washington on May 17th. Be part of the squeaky wheel and let’s get something done!
I knew it was going to be heartbreaking. Talking about orphans and seeing their plight always hurts. I wondered if others were having the same reaction I was. I mean there were so many parts in the movie that hit home for me, a child that would age out at 14 and what that really means, a daughter who weighed 6 pounds at 6 months, failure to thrive, rotted teeth, shaved heads, sleeping on boards, crowded rooms, and all those faces you leave behind, just to name a few. Add to that the fact that a couple of my children would have died in those facilities, well, it was more than I could take.
As I looked around the room, I saw many, many tears being shed. Obviously others were touched too. I couldn’t tell whether it was the movie or because many in the room had already adopted and the memories were just too much. Many were there, just like us, wanting to see what they could do to raise awareness for the orphan. I wondered about the others who were there that have been contemplating adoption, would this movie make them think twice? Would they be fearful that they too would get stuck? Would it change their mind for the worse or the better?
I know that these movies and articles like the one from Mother Jones have a place. The sad reality is that there are people that don’t do it for the right reason. I had a person comment on my last post and it really opened my eyes to what is happening in some places. The other really horrible reality is sometimes people get “stuck” like in the movie. These stories need to be told so reform can be made. I get that, but at the same time in a country where the rate of adoption has plummeted in the past few years, it makes me wonder how much worse it is going to get before it gets better. That is why I mentioned the petition, we need to start somewhere with reform. We need to make a difference for these children. We need to make people understand. Those of us who have been there know. We are their only hope and their hope is fading.
Tonight I was disappointed in the town of Des Moines. In a state of 3 million people and a town of over 200,000 people we weren’t able to sell out a 342 person theater. There were two churches sponsoring it, so it makes you wonder why wasn’t it full of people. Or the fact that many who were there have already adopted, well that lead me to what I often say…..people don’t want to know because if they know the truth, they have to do something about it. You can’t watch this documentary and not have your heart touched. Or maybe you can. I don’t know. Why don’t you give it a try and let me know. It is $12.99, not a lot in the grand scheme of things. Plus, your money goes to a good cause. So what do you say? Get a few people together, have a showing, and educate yourself on what it really means to be an orphan. I’m attaching their website here. Let me know what you think. STUCK
I stayed after to ask Mr. Juntunen a question. What was that thought provoking question you had, Lisa? You were wondering right? No, well, humor me. Please. It’s late and I just cried a lot and I want to go get my children and it’s been a long day. At the end of the show he said I bet you are wondering what you can do. People shook their heads yes and he responded with spread the word. Get on Facebook and let others know. If your friends share and their friends share, the squeaky wheel will get heard. I understand that, but I have been doing that. I’m trying to spread the word through my blog. I’m trying to share with my Facebook friends, but often I feel like I’m preaching to the choir. I know you guys care. Really I do, but then I started thinking about who really reads my blog? Do people really take it to heart? I’m not the most eloquent speaker. I wish I had the ability to really tell a story in a beautiful way, but mostly I just write like I was talking to you in person. So my question was….”What can I do now? I’m already spreading the word. I’m already talking about it. I want to be able to do something. Please tell me what more I can do.”
I want to fix it. But the truth is there’s nothing we can do unless some government official, in some foreign land, that values the life of an orphan very little, suddenly thinks that an orphan deserves to be heard. An orphan adds no money to the economy. An orphan has no family name. An orphan can barely get fed or get an education. How in the world are we going to make a high up official give a lick about a nameless orphan? If a file sits on a desk for months, they don’t care because they don’t see the dejected faces. They don’t see the parents pain. They don’t see the child slowly start to fade away. They really don’t care.
And then I started to think about tonight. In a town with 215 churches (counted from the yellow pages), we couldn’t get one family from each church there to fill the theater. If you go to STUCK’s site and look at the petition, you will see they still need 988,000 signatures. Read the petition. It isn’t asking for a lot. It is asking for people to pay attention to the plight of the orphan. It says that every child deserves the love of a family. Seems pretty reasonable. How can that petition not get enough signatures? Who could be against that? Are we all so complacent and uncaring that we can’t be bothered or is it just that we don’t know about it? The sad, sad reality is that we live in a very prosperous country with millions of Christians. If we can’t get Christians who are COMMANDED to take care of the orphan, to care, how can we possible expect a bureaucrat to? Think about that for a while. It starts with us. We can’t fix others until we fix ourselves.
One of the things that has been most interesting to me on our journey is how many people guess we are people of faith because of what we are doing. People in China know we are Christians because we have chosen to adopt the least of these. Many people have asked us that question. They get it. People here in the states do the same thing. When you talk about taking in children that are vulnerable, that have limited life spans, that aren’t the typical cute, cuddly baby, people notice. I didn’t set out to make a point with our adopting. I set out to adopt the children God lead us to. But the truth is you can talk the talk, but your actions speak louder than anything else in your life. What are your actions saying? What is your life saying is most valuable to you? What are you showing others? Take a moment and educate yourself about what it is truly like for an orphan. Take a moment and ask what you are giving your time, your money, your passions to. Then please take a moment and sign this petition. Make a difference. I truly don’t know what if anything it will end up accomplishing, but what a beautiful thing to be able to see in black and white. A million names standing up for the orphan. A million people in America could really, really make a difference for the fatherless. This is true religion. Not hypocritical, not judgmental, not name calling, not angry, not excluding, but TRUE religion. We have all been adopted into God’s family. It is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Let’s show the world what Christians can do for the least of these.
