(Picture L to R: Dora, Shirley, Monika (Director, Casa Grace)
As I entered the Orphanage building in Oradea this morning, two tiny hands were outstretched running toward me. ‘Mama’, ‘Mama’. Yes, he recognised me from my previous visits, one little lamb who has entered my heart. I am unsure when he will celebrate his 2nd birthday but I do know his life expectancy is very short. As I held him, played with him, I thought of the Lamb of Christmas, Heaven’s Lamb, there was NO ROOM for Him. For this little darling, one of the abandoned babies, a little stranger to me, for him also, NO ROOM. My heart cannot turn away.
Sister Dora has been working with Kingdom Kids for twenty years in the Orphanage building, where ninety disabled children attend for therapy. The abandoned babies are very sick and they live permanently behind doors at the end of one of the corridors. I enjoyed talking with Dora as she shared many stories with me. One example: A man (still with the mind of a child) raised all of his life in a State Institution (where before the Revolution conditions were unspeakable); he is unsure of his age but thinks he may be forty. Knocking on Dora’s door, clutching a note for Santa ‘Please can you send this for me?’ His request for Christmas was Chips, Coke in a glass, oh yes ‘I would like a hat to keep me warm’. No one ever loved him, cradled him, clothed him, cared for him, yet out of one single act of kindness by taking him (on a therapy visit) to MacDonald’s, now all he wants for Christmas are chips and coke in a glass. How can I understand? I cannot. But I can rest this case and the many others in the loving hands that will always be outstretched ‘for one of the least of these my …’
We all love to receive a gift wrapped with a red Christmas bow. The secret of joy in giving is giving with our hearts. The spirit in my heart was certainly joy, I lived the moment. A gift of a CD Player for the Abandoned Baby Wing in the Orphanage and special medical items for another little lamb confined to a cot at all times came from a loving family back in Northern Ireland. Isn’t it great to know these little lambs will have music as they lie so still, so very sick. Praise the Lord, the Gift Goes On. The most precious gift we have been given is the gift of the Babe of Bethlehem.
Shirley, 19 December 2016.