The orphan crisis- my heart is broken.

Dear Readers,
  Ah, usually before I begin a post like this, I spend days finding more facts, more Bible verses relative to it, etc. But, as we are leaving for Hawaii on Saturday (oh.my.goodness!) , and I REALLY needed to share this, I decided to leap off of what I have.
   So, how much do you know about orphans? What about kids with special needs in the Ukraine or Guatamala? While I might be wrong, I'm guessing not much. I, for one, don't know very much on this subject.
  But what if someone told you that, around the world, orphans with special needs are crammed into  cribs all day, on lots of drugs to make them sleep, and only experience human touch when they are taken out of their cribs for changes and feeding? And, that these kids live like this for the first four years of their lives, where they are then sent off to a mental asylum, where 95% die within the first year? What would you say? Would you believe this?
  I recently read a blog post stating these things. And while I can only hope that not ALL orphanages for special needs children are like this, I know  at least one is. And for me, that is enough. The fact that even one of God's precious children has to live like this for the few years he has infuriates and sickens me.
   I know about one orphanage in China, created by the Chapman family in memory of Maria, that is home to special needs kids. I follow their blog, (Maria's Big House of Hope-- on the right) and I guess was hoping that all orphanages serving these kids were just as wonderful. But they're not.
  Now, understand that I do not know the details of every special needs orphanage around the world. But I know that when  I googled "Special needs orphanages", there were a lot of websites that came up, telling about their attempts at making better these orphanages. There was also a news website that the caption said something like "The nightmare soldiers found in an Iraqi special needs orphanage". Nightmare?

  I don't think God planned for us to need orphanages. He couldn't have wanted His precious children to feel lonely or unloved. But since we are living in a fallen world and have come to require orphanages, they should be better than this. Would you want your kid laying in a crib all day-hungry, cold, and desperate for affection-at age 3?  Then we shouldn't let others live like this.
  Jesus cared about people with special needs. The Bible also commands us to take care of the orphans.
So- what will you do? Please- find out more about this, spread the word, and most importantly, pray. Pray mightily for these little ones!
  Remember-- “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Matthew 25:39-41 
                                           Let's do something about this. Your Blogger,
 Claire