A Mother's Heart

With Mother's Day being last week, I was busy thinking about who I could send messages to that day. I sent them to many of my "mommy friends", but my thoughts drifted to the many women I know that have not physically had children or even been able to adopt children. Yet I know their hearts are one with mine. They have held and cared for another woman's child and have cried over that child; loving them fiercely!  I have seen women fight passionately for a child not their "own", protecting them, defending their rights, sheltering them, holding them as they pass into the arms of Jesus.

Why do some women do this? Why do some Adopt? Foster? or Work in orphanages and hospitals with abandoned babies? Because they/we know that these babies are just as precious as any baby we could have biologically. Because God has given us a command that our heart has taken an allegiance to serve. I know so many woman who have taken up this calling even when their hopes of being a mother has not come to pass yet. This post is for them!

These woman are ones that we need to look up to and emulate their self-sacrifice with our own little ones. May I encourage you in something? If you know someone like this~ offer her your support and help. Her job is not easy. If you have been feeling a tug to help the fatherless~ don't keep pushing it aside. Find out what you can do! Whether it is sponsoring a child internationally, becoming a foster parent or just supporting ministries like this one you will. never. regret. it! Because there is nothing more rewarding that being a Mother:)

~Mona

Through Abbey's Eyes

In my past Posts, I mentioned my friend Abbey, who accompanied me to the hospital the first day. I asked her to write about what she felt on her first day. Incidentally, she remembered things that I had forgotten so I enjoyed reading it, as well! Thanks Abbey!

June 2003

I had been warned. I had watched the 20/20 episode over and over again. I had spoken directly to a handful of people who had been there before. I had read countless blogs and websites. But nothing prepared me for what I experienced my first day at the children’s hospital. I left utterly horrified.

As we walked from the parking lot to the guardhouse located on the hospital perimeter, I remember being the most worried that we weren’t going to be granted access into the hospital. The hospital staff was extremely skeptical about giving outsiders, especially Americans, an insider look at the goings on behind the closed doors. I’m not exactly sure what Michelle (the American missionary we were working with that summer) said to the guard in Romanian, but I can assure you allowing us access was of no benefit to him since as we did not offer him any bribes or money to let us through. Finally, after much hesitation, we were miraculously allowed to enter.

As I walked through the double set of glass doors, I remember thinking how eerily quiet it seemed. Where were all the people? And why were all the lights off? Didn’t they have electricity? And why was it so hot? I didn’t expect air conditioning but couldn’t we at least open a window? (I later learned Romanians don’t like to open windows because they believe the cross-breeze can cause illness).

As we made our way up the hospital stairs I couldn’t believe that we had to step around cigarette butts and broken windowpane glass. Wasn’t that a hazard to patient safety? That would never fly in America!

Alas, we arrived on the 7^th floor – our home away from home for the rest of the summer. The walls were sea-foam green, the curtains dark brown and heavy, the rubber tiles on the floor were pealing away, cockroaches were scurrying around the baseboards, the white paint was chipping off the metal cribs, the en-suite bathrooms had scant running water, no soap, and barely usable cabinets.

The babies…oh, the poor babies were all lying there lifeless. I didn’t hear any of them cry. It was as if they were far beyond that…they had already reached a point where they knew their cries would get them nowhere so they stopped trying. Some of them also shared a tiny crib with another abandoned baby. They were covered in mosquito bites and dripping sweat from head to toe. It was SO HOT!!!! They were literally dressed in rags and wrapped in about 3-4 inch thick cloth diapers (which forced them to lay 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with arched backs). It was obvious the purpose of the layers and layers of cloth was so that the babies could lie there for 12 hours in soiled diapers but not soak through the bed sheets.

Not only were the babies not stimulated by sound, touch, sight, or smell, but when it came time to feeding, they were all fed via glass bottles propped up by the bed sheets. If the bottle slipped or if the baby wasn’t able to catch all of the rice cereal/milk that was coming out of the enormously large nipple, they were simply out of luck. Feeding time was over and they’d have to wait again until the next scheduled feeding. I also witnessed toddlers attempting to rock themselves to sleep since they knew no one else would. And I saw kids slamming their heads as hard as they could against the metal cribs over and over again just so that they could get some sort of stimulation.

The tears started to well. It was all way too much and way too much to take in at once. But I KNEW I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t let the nurses see me upset. If they did, they wouldn’t let me back, and these abandoned babies needed me and all the loving they could get.

I left the hospital that day with a very heavy heart but excited at the same time for how God was going to use me that summer. I knew he had incredible plans in store… 

May

May is the month that has a lot of meanings for me. In NY, where I live, it is the beginning of Spring, it is the beginning of fundraising for Project Hope for the Children and it is also Foster Parent Appreciation Month. For my husband and I that has a great deal of significance as we are foster parents and love the opportunity to work with birth parents, who have lost their way and their children. Currently, we do not have an extra little one in our home as our last baby went home in January. We are recharging and concentrating on our two preschoolers, but soon we will receive a call and have another one to love on...

As I was pondering this earlier, it struck me that all of you, who have donated over the years are honorary foster parents. You might not be able to take the babies in Romania into your homes, but you have fed them, clothed them, rocked them and showed them Jesus' love.  "And whatever you have done for the littlest of these,you have done for Me", said the Lord.

So I want to thank you for all you have done over the years and encourage you to keep on! I believe this Ministry is important and your help is what makes it so powerful! Please consider donating this month. There is a PayPal Donate Button on the Home page or you can go to the Donate Section  for more information.

Blessings,

  Mona

Hope for the Children: The Nurses~ A Tribute

Hope for the Children: The Nurses~ A Tribute: When I first started at the hospital, my Romanian was very poor. I could speak a little and understood even less. The poor nurses spoke almo...

The Nurses~ A Tribute

When I first started at the hospital, my Romanian was very poor. I could speak a little and understood even less. The poor nurses spoke almost nill. This was a very frustrating situation and added some tension to the situation. At first I thought that the nurses were just heartless. I mean really... who could let children sit in poopy diapers for over four hours or simply prop a bottle and let the gruel run out onto the bed and never burp the baby? Who could be so cruel?

However, as the months and in some cases years went by, I had a change of heart. Who was I to judge so harshly, to think I could change these babies lives single handedly? You see these women were NOT cruel or heartless! In fact, they had struggles probably so much more than most of you readers and definitely more than I. 

Communism is a difficult task master and these woman had all spent the majority of their lives under it. Going to church was a sin, speaking Hungarian on the streets was dangerous, basic necessities sometimes hard to find, bread lines were a way of life. Now that communism had ended and more commodities were entering Romania there was no money to purchase them. They worked for whatever the government paid them in a hospital that was a throwback to the 1940's and crumbling around their ears. They worked with very few supplies. ( Once after I had been very ill and had some leftover, unused syringes, I asked if the ward would like them? They were gratefully snatched from my hands and put to use) The rooms were dismal, gray and like I mentioned before, smelly. And they toiled there year. after year. after year. with. no. change.

After about a year of me working there, I starting to notice a change. I always played my music (for the babies), every visit I put up fresh window and wall clings, (for the babies) I made sure there was ample diapers and wipes now ( for the babies) I bought bright toys and books and walkers and clothes (all for the babies)! Slowly, it dawned on me that whenever I re-decorated or brought something new into the ward that the nurses would all crowd around and ooh and aah! They started humming to the music and then I saw the smiles... the delight on their faces. Their work environment had desensitized them. They had needed to put up a defense over their hearts because there was Nothing for them to do to help the babies in their suffering. They weren't mean! They had just been beaten down and had no hope.

When this realization struck me,
I remember crying. Crying at my arrogance, crying for the lives that they had led and crying for the hope that I saw enter that ward. Very slowly the nurses started to change. They would come into my room ( which they affectionately coined my gradinita~ my preschool) and talk with me, then they would touch a baby while they talked, then pick one up and cuddle it while we talked. Then one day someone came in and asked if she could help me feed the ten babies I had in there! No one had ever offered to help before and I knew that there had been a major breakthrough in their hearts at that point! Praise God!

These women have become friends of mine and I love going "home" each year to visit with them and work with them! They need to be recognized for their sacrifices and their hard work! The hospital is now been repaired and redecorated. It has been modernized for the most parts. There are many foundations involved and many volunteers and the babies are given a better start in life. But the the nurses and assistants there have a happier place to work now and I think that they deserve it! God Bless, Ladies! Binecuventare!

1,000 Pageviews!

I like numbers~ I like to compare them, add them (especially if working with money) statisticize them (I know that's not a word)  and remember them! Therefore, I have to admit that I am super-excited to see that I have reached 1,000 page views! That might not be a lot in Blog history~ but I think it's pretty cool!

Another thing that is cool is you the audience. Besides the United States, there have been a host of other countries reading in, such as: Russia, Romania, United Kingdom, Ukraine, Puerto Rico, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and Switzerland!

If you are from one of these countries I would love for you to comment on how you found the blog and why you read it! Thanks for reading everyone!

~Mona

A Typical Day

My days quickly took on a routine at the hospital. Some days I was with someone and some days I was alone, but there was so much to do that every day became a blur. I felt possessed by the situation; the hopelessness of it. I often would start awake at night from the empty stares of the babies or the sound of their pitiful wails.

Many of the babies were either born with conditions or had "acquired" them from being at the hospital; Failure to Thrive, Reactive Detachment Disorder, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome to name a few. Many of these babies jolted at my touch as if stung, became hysterical in water and left marks on my arms as they clung to me when lifted from their cribs. Lice was abundant and frequently "Mr Clipper" would come in and shave the babies to rid them of the bugs, which only added to their ghetto look. Most of the children had not been bathed since birth. Their skin was scaly and resembled reptilian skin. I would scrub and scrub over several washes and often there was bleeding afterwards. The water would turn black.

In the mornings I would bathe, oil and change the babies into clean clothes. I remember the shock upon being shown the clothes cabinet. It was filled with "rags" for the babies. Tattered onesies and ripped, stained pajamas in all different sizes~ one size fits all style. Some of the pajamas had so many holes that it was almost pointless to put on.

Then bottles would arrive. Large, heavy glass bottles with nipples stretched over the top of the bottle and a large, jagged hole in the top for sucking. The nurses would come in and prop all the bottles while I claimed one child and sat and fed the baby. Feeding became an art of carefully holding baby and bottle at just the right angle for the liquid to flow slowly and evenly. When this did not happen choking, gasping and coughing would occur and baby and I would both cry then start again. Meanwhile, the other bottles would slip from the babies mouths and start leaking onto the sheets. The baby would begin mewing but then give up because it was pointless to get it back. Many times the nurses would come in and gather the bottles, commenting that the babies were not hungry! (After a couple of weeks I made the nurses understand that I would personally feed all the babies and please, do not take the bottles until they were empty!) I have fed 8-12 babies alone several times a day.

Burping was unheard of in those days and still quite often today, but it was torture hearing the babies suffering from gas pains because no one took the time to burp them. So I would burp each one until all had once again settled into silence. After a couple of weeks I brought in a CD player and began playing music in the rooms. Bouncy, energetic music for when they needed to be up and stimulated and soft relaxing music for when they needed to sleep. It was the first time these babies had ever identified different parts of their day. It was so sweet to see their eyes brighten and watch them roll back and forth in their cribs during the "up" hours. Such a break in the monotony!

Holding babies, rocking babies, singing to babies, changing babies, feeding babies, bathing babies and on and on every day... It might not seem like much, but watching their bodies grow fatter and softer; their eyes start to twinkle and their brains start to work is a Miracle for me every year....

This ministry is not just about humanitarian aid; it is about rescuing souls!