Who Makes Decisions For Children?

The following video will break your heart.  But, you know--sometimes our hearts NEED to be broken so something can change--so we can BE the change that needs to happen.

Watch it all the way to the end.  Read the captioning at the end. 



Okay, so I would obviously agree that they needed to have the medical intervention, the nutritional help, and even the physical therapy.  What breaks my heart is the way it seems to happen.  We (Christians, missionaries, aid societies, foster care systems, etc) come in and make such DRASTIC changes and think we did a good thing.  And I can't argue that a measure of good HAS been done!  It has. 

But, what about 8 year old Jane, the mother-child?  You just take her siblings from her (who were her whole life and she theirs) and expect her to act like any regular child?  NO, that won't happen.  And the two little ones.  You take their lifeline from them and think they will just thrive because we have ridden in our our great white steeds to save the day?  You know, we might make them healthier, and we even might save their lives.  But at what cost?  Breaking up a family to bring a measure of good doesn't have to be the way it happens.

Jane needed to stay with her brother and sister.  They needed to stay with her.  Of course they needed help--they needed OUT of that desperately sad situation if they were to survive--no question.  But why couldn't that connection be preserved for them?  Why do we do this?  Even in our own country, in our foster care system, folks are all about putting the "handicapped" child in an institution or in a medical facility or a family who "deals with children like this", and putting the typical, healthy siblings in a different family, as if since there was a handicap involved, there was no emotional connection on the part of either child.  My Jared, Lena and Jonas are a perfect example of this phenomenon.  We had to fight tooth and nail for a year to be able to keep Jonas and Lena with Jared.  The state wanted to separate them.

I. JUST. DON'T. GET. IT.  Children--handicapped children, too--DO MAKE CONNECTIONS and have very deep and important relationships.  They deserve to have their connections preserved.  Help them, of course, but one of the best ways to help is to keep them connected to the people they care about and love WHILE you help them.

Okay, you may return to your regularly scheduled internet surfing now, and I'll step down from my soapbox--until next time something irks me, anyway. :)