Is It Still Dark at MIS?

Paul loves to know what time it is at MIS, the care center where he used to live. The six hour time diffence is both puzzling and fascinating. (To me, also.) Yesterday afternoon we were driving from school to the offices of Kentucky Refugee Ministry. (That detail seemed relevant to me at the time. Maybe it is. I'm not sure.) "Is it dark at MIS?" Paul asked.

I looked at the clock. 3:45 pm Kentucky time = 9:45 pm Lesotho time. "Yeah, buddy, it's dark in Lesotho. The kids are probably all sleeping."

"Not the big kids," Paul said. "They's having a campfire for a little bit."

I stayed quiet, although I was curious. A campfire? Sometimes, if I don't press, these remembrances continue. And sometimes, not always, I can ferret out true happenings in his past from fantasy wish fulfillment. He didn't elaborate, though, but continued to draw in his journal.

"Will all the kids get 'dopted?" he asked after a few minutes.

Interestingly, we had just gotten an email from a friend in Lesotho updating the lastest match meeting. Eleven children (out of approximately 200,000 orphans in the entire country) were matched. Which is wonderful, yes, but fewer than the possible 16 allowed per match meeting. (Four children per adopting country.) "Well, we can pray that all the kids will be adopted into a family that loves them," I said.

"But will they?" (He's my realist.)

"Probably not," I answered truthfully.

"Will the big kids get 'dopted?" he asked.

"I don't know, buddy." By now my eyes are prickling and I'm trying not to cry. The faces of two particular big kids are etched in my mind. One, a boy with a soccer ball tucked under his arm and a megawatt smile, is Paul's abuti, the brother figure who looked out for him at the care center. Another, a tall, thin girl with shy eyes is Paul's best friend's sister. As David Platt said, "Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names."

"What they gonna do with no famb'ly?"

"I don't know." I thought of the street kids we'd met in Lesotho. What are they gonna do?

"Some kids won't get 'dopted," he said. "Retsedesie died. Why?"

Now I'm crying and I'm realizing in just a few minutes I have to convince the KRM youth director that Sam and I are emotionally stable enough to tutor refugee children, who are also from hard places. "He got really sick, buddy. But he was with M'e Mamonyane and Miss Nancy and his sister and KB, and they all really loved him."

"At MIS, if a kid got a big hurt, he just laid down. Sometimes a M'e helped, but sometimes they's busy. We didn't have a doctor. Some kids went to hospital, but then they stayed there."

Sometimes the world is a terrible place. "It's really hard, isn't it?"

He was quiet for a minute. "Is it still dark at MIS?"

"Yeah, buddy. It's still dark."

P.S - If you feel called to support children from hard places, many of whom won't get 'dopted, I encourage you to visit Ministry of Hope, working in Malawi and Lesotho to provide feeding centers, educational scholarships, and support for single mothers. Or check out Orphan Care Alliance and their work with vulnerable children in Louisville and around the world.

P.P.S - MIS, the care center where Paul lived, was shut down in March. Many of those children went to Beautiful Gate, Ministry of Hope and other locations (including the street) throughout the country.