Tears for a happy ending

Kristel's mother and 2 sisters she left behind

Baby Kristel, when she wasn't crying on the trip home

Grammy: “We might be going South to get some babies.” I try not to get my hopes up again. Countless times this has happened, and always falls through. On my birthday we even went to a baby’s village, saw it, then found out we couldn’t take it back with us. I have been dreaming, even months before coming to Bangladesh, of rescuing a baby from a village to bring it back to a happier life at the orphanage.

5:30 a.m. March 7, 2011 my dream began coming true. We were on our way to a village school in the South of Bangladesh where 5 babies were waiting to come home with us.  My first sight was a distressed group of family members holding these precious babies they were about to give up.  Their conditions are such that they know it will be better for the child to grow up in our orphanage, but the heartache it causes them is covering their faces. It is a true sacrifice of love to give the child to us, and a true blessing for us to receive such a precious gift. We first take pictures with whatever family/guardian came with the child and gather what we can of the child’s story, the reason they are giving us their child. One family had 5 daughters and was so destitute they didn’t have any place to live except a thatch shelter they made ON the road; we took their 2 youngest daughters the grandparents couldn’t care for. Another family’s father saw his own father murdered in front of him, went into shock, and is now mentally ill and unable to care for or support his family. The mother has 3 daughers, the youngest of which we took. These people have truly traumatic stories that compel them to give their own children up.

On the ground we lay out a mat where we wash and dress each child in a new outfit for the 10 hour trip home.  Then we must tenderly rip these little loved ones away and take them into our care. In a country that is 90% Muslim, I witnessed something quite rare; when I took baby Kristel(as I named her later) from her mother, her last words to her baby girl were(in Bangla) “Talk to Jesus. Whether you’re happy or sad, He will always be with you.” I could see in that mother a certain faith and hope the other guardians there didn’t have amidst their pain; Jesus makes all the difference. Painfully, we push the crying mothers and families aside and shut ourselves with the new babies inside the van. The heartache all over the faces we left behind and the crying of the babies inside was overwhelming; something so heartbreaking you cannot understand until you experience it. As soon as the car door shut, it was nothing but tears for precious baby Kristel(maybe 1 ½ -2 yrs old) until she cried herself to sleep. Ocasionally she would wake up only to wimper and cry herself to sleep again in my arms. After a few hours of this she finally accepted an orange. 10 mins later it came back up all over me and her new dress J Poor Kristel was carsick on top of all the trauma.  When it happened again later, I was lucky enough to get her head out the window in time to avoid a second-dousing of baby puke J Only once the whole trip home did I see Kristel happy; she hung her head out the window and was pointing out to me all the cars and banana trees and waving, “Tata!” (“Bye-bye!”). Like a little puppy, she was just loving the wind in her face-a truly precious sight after all her tears! But the tears were not over. Soon she was grasping the window, tears rolling down her little cheeks crying out “Ma koi?” (“Where’s mom?”) It broke my heart. This innocent baby girl was devastated at being torn away from her mother. It wasn’t her fault, and she doesn’t understand she is going to a happy place. Though it is heart-wrenching to take these precious children away, they will have a better life at BanglaHope. They will grow up happy, with sufficient food and clothes, an education, over 100 playmates, and most importantly they will learn about Jesus.  Though they cry when they come, their tears will have a happy ending.