Some thoughts on Mei and Eli...

I woke up this morning to the reminder that today is Human Trafficking awareness day. As I pondered and reflected on this, I was drawn back to the streets of China. While walking the streets with our newly adopted children, we passed by several beggers. All the beggers we passed were special needs in some way but most were physically impaired. They were missing arms and legs, had club feet that were never corrected, they couldn't walk and crawled on their bellies, they were barely clothed, wrapped in rags, dirty. Some were down syndrome or were mentally impaired in some way. WHat really struck me as we passed them by was that someone was horribly taking advantage of them. Many of them would have had to be carried to their begging spot. Someone would have had to lay them on the ground and set a cup in fromt of them for money to be dropped in. My guess is that same someone that put them there collected their money at the end of each day and threw them in some disgusting environment to "rest" until the cycle started again. I would imagine they are probably given crumbs to eat if anything. Many that we passed were shivering from the cold. It's truly heartbreaking.....This is modern day slavery. These poor souls have been taken advantage of by a cruel master. Their lives are no longer their own. My mind immediately went to my Mei as we passed the by the beggers. My first thought was "oh Dear Jesus...would that have been Mei's future?" We know that Mei at some point would have been so crippled that he wouldn't have been able to walk, his poor deformed feet would have not been able to support his body as it got bigger. At the age of 16, would he have been turned onto the street like all other children that age out or would he have stayed in the orphanage? Who knows....but I know that many of those we passed had the same deformities as Mei and it broke my heart... Orphans in China age out of their ability to be adopted at their 14th birthday. They are typically allowed to stay in the orphanage until the age of 16. At that point, they are given some pocket change and released to the streets to make a go of it on their own. A huge percentage fall prey to human traffickers. The predators win them over with a promise of money and a better life and before the orphans know it, they are owned by a master. This slavery comes in all forms....sexual, prostitution, brothels, hard manual labor where they are working from very early to very late and get paid next to nothing. There are hundreds or thousands of Mei's and Elis in the world. This is my prayer that I am copying from Lifesong for Orphans, "Praying for families in countries all over the world who have room in their homes and hearts for a fatherless child. Asking that the Lord would be speaking to their hearts even now, leading them to consider adopting an orphan." This is the ultimate protection for orphans to keep them from being vulnerable to the human traffickers around the world. "To be engaged in orphan care is to be fighting against human trafficking and slavery. For every orphan that finds a family, is one less likely to be victimized."