Praying for Abandoned Children

Natalia is only 12 years old, but she is a Sunday school teacher in her small village in Moldova. When she stood in front of those attending our training, she seemed older than her years. Stoically she talked about the poverty, the lack of hope, and the consequences of abandonment. And when I said to those hearing that we were seeing through the eyes of a child, Natalia began to weep. She wept for the two children who had drowned in a nearby lake because there were no parents to watch over them. She wept for the 10-year-olds who are served alcohol in bars because money is more important than children. She wept because she should be allowed to be a child … and she cannot be one.

While we were in Moldova, we heard story after story of children left with grandparents, neighbors, or no one at all. Why? Because parents flew to Russia, Portugal, Italy or elsewhere in a desperate attempt to find work. What happens to these children, often very young? Many end up on the streets or in terrible orphanages if there is no one to nurture them. Many may have a place to sleep, but no structure or accountability throughout the day, so they become involved with drugs, sex, and alcohol. These children are very like the abandoned buildings that dot the country of Moldova … tattered, rundown, and without hope. They become the targets of evil people who promise jobs and help but bring degradation and slavery. When I was in Moldova last year, there was a newspaper story of a grandmother who offered her grandson for sale … for sex or body parts! She was caught and he was saved, but how many more abandoned children end up thinking this is what is normal for them?

When children experience abandonment, their “trusters” get broken. There is no one to comfort hurts, to whisper “I love you,” to answer their questions, to be there for them. When these needs are not met, children eventually give up hope, and the dream of all they could be disappears. So what can we do?

• We can pray that local churches will rise up to meet the needs of the abandoned children … not only their physical needs, but their emotional and spiritual ones. (In Moldova, after years of Communist rule, the churches forgot the mandate to care for “widows and orphans.”)
• We can pray that children become valued and therefore protected from evil.
• We can pray that in children’s darkest moments, they know there is a God who loves them and has a plan “to give them a future and a hope.”
• We can pray that “trusters” become mended and children become part of God’s forever family!