Introducing the Handsome Mr. Snortles

Over the last few days, I have really felt the burden to share with you the story of an extra special little man. Now some would say that he is not the most beautiful of children. Maybe it is because his thyroid problem makes his eyes stick out of his sockets farther than most. Or maybe it is because his head is really big, almost too big for his tiny body. Or maybe because he looks just a little scary. But when I first saw this baby in a picture, I felt a special connection to this handsome little bugger. Yes, he may have looked a little freaky looking but something in me just wanted to meet him and be able to hold him. When I left the orphanage back in December I had been keeping up to date with the new kids coming in and out. When I found out that baby Amasaiah arrived, he was put on my list of children that I was "eager to meet."As soon as I got to OLTCH that first day on June 9th, I immediately sought out those beautiful familiar faces that I had longed a whole six months to see again. After that, I began searching for this bug-eyed babe. I found him in the baby house in a dilapidated baby swing being fed a bottle by just a pillow propped up under his chin. He looked up at me with those huge dark eyes and I melted. I picked him up and hand fed him the rest of his bottle. As I began playing with him I realized that his features did not match the personality inside of this little guy. He had the motor skills and personality of a 7 month old yet he was half the size of one of the 3 month olds in the nursery. One of the best attributes of this baby was his snorting. He could not breathe out of his nose because of some sort of respiratory infection. so every time he laughed or was eating and he had to breath out of his nose he would snort. It.was.the.cutest.thing.ever. not to mention that his smile lit up his whole face. I began to fall in love with this little baby. I spent as much time with him as I could (without making it look like I was playing favorites of course :) ) Amasaiah and I would have play time every day. Usually it was around feeding time because he had such a time feeding himself. I started to think that the nannies were purposely neglecting him because they did not change his clothing or his diaper as often as the other babies. And while other babies were ALWAYS held to be fed, Amasaiah had to learn to feed himself almost all the time. My time with him each day went in pretty much the same routine. I would walk in, he would smile, and I would smile. I would pick him up and change his diaper and his clothes. I would then get him a bottle and take him out into the sunshine where we would sit and eat (drink) and play and have cuddle time. I cherished each moment with this sweet boy and I uncovered his precious personality.While I was at the orphanage, amasaiah took a turn for the worse. It got to the point that he was sneezing almost constantly which caused him to not be able to breathe and to snort way worse than usual. We chose to put him back into the hospital to get some breathing treatments to help his airways. The very next day something happened that I will never forget.Amasaiahs mom did not want for her two older, normal, boys to be adopted so she had to take them away from the orphanage. But because she did not have the luxury of choosing which ones she did and did not want to be adopted based on normalcy, she was forced to take home all three of the boys. Including Mr. Snortles (which I so fondly had begun calling my little bug-eyed prince). This meant that she had to go to the hospital and take him home with her. As I watched this mother come to the orphanage and take these two older boys away from their friends and their chance at a better life in America with a family that had already met and bonded with them, my heart hurt. Just to watch it happen around me. But what hit me was knowing that she was taking that baby away from his chance for survival. For life. Not life to the fullest by any means, but just the chance to take another breath. For with his mother, the odds of his survival were slim without the proper medical attention. As I spent the rest of my trip at OLTCH, I missed that little boy and that precious smile that was given to me every time I walked into the room to see him. The pain I felt when I thought how he could be somewhere close by struggling to draw in the very thing I took for granted each and every second of every day: breath. That was a lot to handle. As a person who has a self diagnosed "I want to have a part in the healing process of the injustice all around me" complex, it was hard to be able to hand that situation over to God. That may be why God made it harder and harder to say goodbye to each and every one of those six kids that were taken back by their parents during my three week stay there. God broke me down to a point where I had nothing more left to give because it felt like every time I gave a little and gave a little piece of my heart away to these kids, something happened and they were taken. Talk about learning to love dangerously.A lot of the emotional conflict came weeks after I got home to the states. I find myself wondering about Amasaiah and if he is even still alive. That is such a scary thought. I feel bad saying this, but I feel that it would be better to know for sure whether he is alive or not. I have always had a hatred of the unknown. I’m slowly learning to embrace it, but fear of the unknown causes doubt to creep in. and that is where I have been the last few days/weeks.I was just telling my mom the other day how; Amasaiah was the one that I wanted to introduce her to the most when she arrived. Yet he was taken a few days before they arrived. In the afternoons I would sit with him and talk to him. We would have serious adult conversations some times. Or sometimes I would just tell him about what was going on inside the compound that day. But never the less, one thing I told him almost daily was "wait until my mommy meets you, if you think I love you, wait till you meet her. you will love her, and she will love you and hold you all the time and tell you how special you are." and I told him about how even though people think that he looks funny, my mommy will be the one to look right past it and love him with the kind of love that only a mother can give, the kind he had not yet been able to have enough of. The part that kills me is that this never got a chance to happen. God had other plans.Watching all of these kids come and go and finally getting chance to process all of these feelings I can’t help but think: "did I love them enough? When I left those gates did I do a good enough job of making sure that every single child felt how much I loved them? did I do enough?" and I have realized that until I can answer that question with a 100% "yes" then my work is not yet done there. then my mom reminded me that I need to keep in mind that they all need Jesus first before any of us because we are just the flesh, just the hands and feet of Jesus. I think the part that I struggle with is that how can I claim to show them the hands and feet of Jesus until I have loved them so completely that I have no earthly energy left? And if I leave there at any time feeling that I could have given more then I did not adequately portray the love of Christ. Because in a country where words fail the only way you can communicate the love of Christ is by allowing him to work and love through you. And recently I have doubted as to whether I can say that I completely opened my life to be a vessel to its fullest capacity to allow his love to flow through me.And until I can say that, I will continue to try as long as it takes me. And if that means it will take a lifetime. Bring it on."Break my heart for what breaks Yours, everything I am for Your kingdoms cause..." ~Brooke Fraser