Baruch Dayan Emet

Since I became aware of the wholesale abandonment and neglect of children with special needs in most of the world - even places I thought were "civilized" - there were a handful of children who struck a special chord in my heart.  One of them was taken home by his parents!  A couple have been adopted, and I am following their stories as they emerge from their cocoon of institutionalization and becoming the brilliant butterflies they were meant to be. And a couple are trapped behind the Russian adoption ban, unless a European or domestic Russian family comes forward for them.

Sasha was spoken for.  A family had committed to adopting him, to take him out of the Level 4 Institute he had recently been transferred to and bring him home. To help him recover from the severe malnutrition he had clearly been suffering from.  To provide for his many known and unknown medical needs.  And to love him unconditionally.

They were due to travel to Ukraine in 5 weeks.

35 days.

And now he is dead.  Most likely buried in an unmarked grave in a field among the other children who died before their time, for the same reason or similar reasons.   Maybe a cross is planted over his undersized corpse.  But no-one will visit his grave.  No one will pray over it.

Sasha was the second child listed on Reece's Rainbow to die as an orphan since the beginning of 2013. The first one was a little girl with the screen name "Stacy", also with Down syndrome, also recently transferred:

It has been documented that the overwhelming majority (estimated around 85%) of children with Down syndrome who are placed in these "mental institutions" die within a year of transfer.

How many more will needlessly die this year, for want of food, medical care, and LOVE?

Adonay natan.  Adonai lakakh.  Yehi shem Adonai mevorakh.
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.

They were going to name him Jonathan - "The Lord gave".

Updates

Not much blogging in November.  We are actually adopting..... a rescue dog!   I think this will actually prove an important step in helping the whole family deal with the kinds of issues that are likely to come up in a real adoption, but on a much smaller scale.  And she is wonderfully adorable!

Some really good news:

Garreth has a family coming for him!


Sasha has a family coming for him!  After all these years!  I am so excited to follow his story home!



And some bad news:

Alexei has been transferred to that same "Lost Boys" institution.  He is a nine and a half years old toddler.  In the baby house, his eyes sparkled mischievously, and he had some serious spunk.


How long will his spirit hold out in a life of sitting in an empty shed with a pack of mistreated, neglected boys and youths who spend their days rocking and grunting?


And a sad story that I didn't know about until it was over.

31 for 21: Who will save Sasha?

Whoa!  Somebody is looking out for Sasha:

Sasha was recently transferred to a remote, underfunded mental institution for older children and adults.  He is getting no care or attention there.  He is probably grossly underfed and only getting one diaper change a day.  

But somehow, his grant at Reece's Rainbow has grown to nearly $10,000 lately.  Will that encourage someone to look past Sasha's scary needs and go to that mental institution and rescue him?

His profile speculates on whether he has Cerebral Palsy and/or Autism in addition to Down syndrome.  We do not know if his behavior and severely delayed development is caused by these or other possibilities, or just due to institutionalization.   We do know that he is TINY!  Look at him in the caregiver's hands, like a little baby.  He does seem to be holding his head well in the second picture, while in the earlier one he is still flopped over.  Am I totally crazy to think that he has the potential to grow and develop?  Is there anyone out there "crazy" enough to help him do so?

Hope for Sasha!

I just saw that Sasha is this month's Child of the Month on Reece's Rainbow, and it has been doing wonders for his adoption grant already!  Hopefully this will encourage a family to step forward and claim him, maybe even soon!!!  Get him out of the Lost Boys institution!

Heavy on my heart

Even though we have begun the homestudy process, I still feel so helpless when I see these children.  I can't adopt them all, and most of them don't fit the criteria that we have agreed on.  So please, somebody, help them!

Little Sasha, eight years old and still the size of a baby, just transferred to an adult mental institution where he probably never goes out of his crib, is inadequately fed and changed, and where, statistically speaking, he is likely to die within a year:

I first saw 8-year-old Donovan listed under "Additional Children".  Now he has his own listing.  Look how tiny and frail he is!  Can you see his ribs through the t-shirt? I imagine he was "cheerful, sociable" as an infant, but now I doubt he has the energy for that.

Dylan is an adorable 9-year-old, sitting here on a toddler ride-on toy.  I just want to scoop him up!

Back in May I blogged about Nathan, whose eyes still haunt me.

Look what a sweet baby he was.  This is what years in an institution will do to a human being.

The same transformation is evident in Sonny, who went from a cute smiley redhead:

To a frightened child, beaten by the older children (or even the staff) at an institution:

Oh my. I can't take this any more.