When Hope is Gone

 I will never forget seeing them as we stepped off of the basement elevator. Children that might have had the hope of a family at one point in time, but now that time was gone. These were children that this agency team had seen the year before while visiting the orphanage, but when one of our tender-hearted team members searched for some of them, longing to see them and embrace them once again, they were nowhere to be seen. They had been moved. To the lower floor where hope was gone. 

Permission was given for some of us to go visit these children in the lowest level of the building. And so stepping off of the elevator they came towards us. Longing in their eyes, yearning for affection, for attention, to be seen, to be cared for for as much time as we could give them. I remember that many of the children seemed to have Cerebral Palsy, and one particular girl caught my eye who used a walker to get around. She is pictured below. You can see the joy radiating from her eyes, and I kept thinking - How? How in the world do you find joy in this place, and in these circumstances? Another girl sat on the floor down the hall surrounded by her own urine. She was unable to walk alone, and hadn’t received any assistance in finding a place to relieve herself in private. We embraced her, and as we walked away she followed behind scooting along as quickly as she could. An older girl reached for us, longing for affection, and then wouldn’t let go as we tried to continue on to other children. 

We loved on these sweet children as much as we could in the short time we had with them, and spoke to them in words they couldn’t possibly understand, but did in their hearts. And then we climbed back in the elevator. Moved. Changed. Broken in heart that these children would live like this for the rest of their lives, either in this institution or another just like it. We clung to the hope that somehow that inner joy that some of them seemed to have would sustain them. 

Back in the van, a heaviness settled over us. Visiting the younger children who had a chance had given us hope. Leaving children who have no hope will change your heart forever.

Photos courtesy of Erin Martin.