Wesley is Waiting

Tonight I'd like to tell you about a boy.  Sometimes, there's a particular child who touches my heart, or who tugs at my soul in such a way that I would love to be able to bring them home myself.  It kills me to know these particular children are desperate for a family, in a way that is much deeper than the general feeling of sorrow I have for a child without a family.

One of those children is Wesley. 

Wesley will age out in late summer, in August 2014.  He's approximately 13 years old.  It's hard for China to know how old a child is when they aren't abandoned as a baby.  With babies, it's much clearer what you're looking at.  Wesley was not a baby when he was abandoned.  He was not even a toddler.  Heck, he was not even a preschooler.  He was found, standing alone in front of the orphanage, left behind by his family, when he was six years old.

Can you imagine?  Can you imagine being six, old enough to know, old enough to be congizant of the fact that the person you trust the most has turned from you and left you without anyone?  In my mind, the scenario plays over and over.  Did they tell him anything?  Did they promise to be back to get him to stay?  Did they say they loved him, or just tell him to get out and stay there until someone came?  Maybe someday he'll tell his adoptive parents what really happened, when he's home and settled in and comfortable, and, finally finally, safe.  For us, all we can do is know that his sorrow and trauma must have seemed insurmountable to his little heart.  I tear up when I think about it.  My heart is broken by this boy and his experiences.  Such a hard world for a child so young.

I can't begin to speculate why Wesley's family left him alone in a strange place to the care of people he had never met on August 24, 2006.  I can't begin to imagine what they were thinking.  I hope that they were as heartbroken as he must have been, and I hope their reasons were good ones.  But in the end, that doesn't really matter.  Wesley was six.  A sweet little kindergartner, and he was left at the gates of orphanage that would become his home.  In his file it's noted that an employee of the orphanage found "a boy whom no one cared for" abandoned by the gate.

It's clear that these words were meant to mean something pragmatic.  That he was left alone, without any supervision, at the gate to the orphanage.  But the poignancy of these words is profound.  The boy whom no one cared for.  I'm sure that he felt every inch of that.  A child left behind by all he'd ever known in the world.  Unloved and uncared for.  And that's where he still is today.  Seven years later and he's still the boy whom no one cares for.  A boy without a family.  A boy without a home.  A boy who will lose any chance of finding the basic human need for love fulfilled by a family in just months.  

Look at this boy's face.



Look past the initial surprise of his being an albino, and see a little boy who deserves so much more.  His files say he is gentle.  Sensible.  Polite and easy to get along with.  After being left at such a crucial point in his life, he is still polite and gentle and easy to know and love.  I don't know that, with all of my blessings, a person would call me gentle and easy to love.  Wesley is a strong soul.  A special one.  I found this information about Wesley's file from a beautiful blog post written a couple of years ago, I would link it if I remembered where I read it.  And still, after years, he waits. (Updated to add: the blog post I found his file info from is here http://mad.ly/4bca94 and it's lovely.)  

Wesley's special need is visible for all to see.  His albinism makes his eyes sensitive and his vision slightly lessened.  He needs to cover up to protect himself from the brutal sun.  This is an easy, easy need.  Wesley is otherwise healthy, cognitively normal, and full of energy.  Every child deserves so much more than an orphanage, but Wesley could be such a blessing to a family.  I feel like while I am still breathing, I can't let this boy age out.  Someone please see him!  Let his face and his past touch your soul and know that he is your child.

Wesley has a TEN THOUSAND dollar grant with Reece's Rainbow.  That's a big grant.  Wesley is on the shared list, which means his file can be worked by any agency.  But WACAP, who is a wonderful, wonderful agency that I can't say enough good things about, has offered any parent who uses their agency to adopt Wesley an additional FOUR THOUSAND dollar grant.  That's a combined FOURTEEN THOUSAND dollars to bring this boy home.  Wesley is aging out.  It's not unlikely that, if asked, his orphanage will waive his orphanage fee.  Those typically run right around 8,000 give or take.  So it's very possible that this child could start an adoption process with TWENTY-TWO THOUSAND dollars already there for him.  That is most of an adoption.  Nearly all of it.

You can find out more about Wesley by clicking here and here.  Please see him, share him with your friends.  Help him to find the people who will make him a son, a brother, a grandson and a nephew.  The people who will make him something beside the boy whom no one cared for.


Amber