Seth Barnes Nov 22, 2007 7:00 PM

The dying room

We were sitting with Dave S. in downtown Hong Kong last week when Dave said something so unsettling I had to stop him and ask him for an explanation. ...

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We were sitting with Dave S. in downtown Hong Kong last week when Dave said something so unsettling I had to stop him and ask him for an explanation.

"When we adopted our daughter from one of the thousands of orphanages in C---- (a large Asian country), she was one of the oldest orphans to come out.

"When I asked how many of them graduate out as teenagers they told me, none do. They told me, 'That's why we have a dying room.'"

A dying room - a room where love and nutrition-starved orphans go to end their days.

The words just landed in my spirit with a thud. Later I checked the internet and found an expose (no longer on line) showing the dying rooms of C---- - 21 million babies born a year and the unwanted have to die somewhere.

In a world so full of opportunity and resources, in a faith so filled with hope and love, how is it that dying rooms exist? How is it that in America a couple can spend $30,000 trying to adopt a child when orphans in C---- are sent to a room to die?

How is it that we preoccupy ourselves in America with lowering our golf handicaps when situations like this exist?

When we pray "Thy kingdom come," I think one of the ways God responds is, "Help get rid of the need for dying rooms." We can adopt, we can go, and we can give. We don't have to live out our days turning a blind eye to this kind of pain.

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