I remember the week after September 11, 2001. My husband was working out of town, so every night I’d come home from work, turn on the TV and watch the recovery efforts. I remember watching the telethon benefit that was held shortly after the tragedy occurred.
Fast forward 9 years, and I’m not getting my information from the television. With young children at home, I’m not going to broadcast the footage that’s being shown into our living room. Instead, I’m getting my info via Twitter and Facebook–from people on the ground in Haiti (follow @MissionMANNA, they are retweeting everything, or feel free to follow the list I created) and from charities with operations there. I’m having a hard time looking away.
I’ve also been spending a vast amount of time thinking about the children effected by this catastrophe. About the 380,000 children who were in orphanages before the earthquake. About the children granted humanitarian parole and united with their new adoptive parents. About the newly orphaned/ separated children whose worlds have been turned upside down.
These children need so much. I think about how much care my 19month old needs on an average day–the bathing, the dressing, the feeding, the diaper changing, and I think about how impossible the task of simply caring for Haiti’s children seems. Add in the trauma of an earthquake, and how is that supposed to happen?
I read an amazing post last night on Upside-Down Adoption that explains some of the pitfalls of having a modern day “Pedro Pan” operation. There is no easy answer to this situation. Here’s the thing though, there was no easy answer the day before the earthquake to Haiti’s (and so many other nation’s) problem of abandoned, orphaned and neglected children. With so many people now thinking and praying about it, my hope is that we are headed in the right direction.
For more photos, check out www.firesideinternational.org‘s Web Gallery They are happy to share their photos, just link back to them.