Questions from the Kids

Each day our family has been praying for Isaiah.  As you can imagine, this new topic of prayer has also generated questions from the peanut gallery!  Kids ask good questions, silly questions, and hard questions.  Here are some of the queries we have received. I hope we can answer them truthfully, but as you can see, some questions are hard to answer!

Where is Isaiah? 
He is in an orphanage in Russia.

What is an orphanage?
In some countries, it is a place where kids who do not have families are sent to live.  There are people there who will help take care of them.

Why doesn't Isaiah have a family? 
Well, we're praying that he does have a family.
(This one is so tough!  How do you explain to a 4- and 7-year-old the reality -- that Isaiah has Down syndrome, just like their brother, which means that he is considered unwanted by some?)

Are we going to adopt Isaiah? 
 No, we don't plan to right now.  We are praying for Isaiah to have a family.
(You knew this one was coming!  This is another tough one.  In reality, we probably couldn't adopt him.  Russia has very strict rules about adoptive parents, and my history of postpartum depression is considered a "mental illness" in Russia.)

Is Henry going to a place like Isaiah?
No, Henry is your brother.  We love him and he will always be a part of our family.
(My oldest, in particular, can't figure out why others think Down syndrome is a problem.  She was saddened to see so many kids with Down syndrome on the Reece's Rainbow site.  She loves her brother SO much that she says she wants a boy with DS when she grows up!)



I wish our world were different, with no orphans, sickness, or sadness.  But until our Lord returns, we live in a this fallen, broken world.  Explaining these things to kids isn't easy, and I have kept things from them due to their age and innocence.

My message to them is the same to you -- we pray, we have hope, we have faith.  In the past two days, for example, two more children have found families through RR, and Isaiah has another $100 in his Angel Tree fund.  There is hope in this broken world -- hope in Christ.