One Child Coming, Another One Leaving

As my long intermission between blog posts would suggest, life has been quite busy here at the Bahler household. There's much to share, many stories to tell, and a lot of topics I want to touch upon in upcoming blog posts, but for the moment I'll suffice to write about one of them.

In two days, we go to get our first ultrasound. Our first pictures of our first child. Hopefully (s)he will dance a little jig so we can find out if its a boy or a girl. Amber's beginning to go into "nesting" mode and has taken up scouring the Craig's List ads for co-sleepers, cribs, and all things baby-related. We even bought diapers and other baby products on Sunday at CVS as they were greatly on sale. This is all well and good, and planning for the future is fine and dandy, but my mind has difficulty wrapping around what my life is going to be like in March of 2009 when it hasn't even had the time to think about next week. Last week was particularly difficulty thinking about all of this as we were hosting several strangers from out of town for a huge philosophy conference being hosted at Duquesne (more on that to come in later posts). So, I would come home each day completely exhausted and Amber would begin barraging me with questions about decorations for our baby room and crib designs. Of course, its not that I shouldn't be thinking about such things... its just going to take a while for me to get used to it!

On the other hand, a bit more than a week ago, I was notified that my sponsored child through Compassion International had been removed from the program. Upon finding out (which was frustrating to begin with, as my cell phone was called from a 1-800 number - and who picks up a call from a 1-800 number? - so I had to hear the news through a voice mail), I was shocked, then perplexed, and then angry. Abigail Asami is no longer my sponsored child. For nearly 11 years I've supported her - not that I'm saying this to boast, but simply to point out that this was a regular aspect of my life. Even more mesmerizing still is that she was kicked out because she's pregnant. My first thought when I heard this news was, "I wasn't a good enough sponsor. I should have contacted her more. I should have wrote more. I should have worked harder to go see her. I could have done something to prevent this." I thought, well, like a parent - about a girl who is no longer my child.

She's not a girl really either. She's 19 years old (Compassion children often do not graduate until they're 20 or 21) and has an 8th grade education. The Sponsor relations guy who called said she was healthy and was going to be fine because she had an interest in tailoring and had developed skills in being a seamstress. Well that's reassuring, but - and here is when my mind begins to flood with questions - what's a pregnant girl going to do out on her own with an 8th grade education? And why''s a child being kicked out of the program at the time when she needs support and encouragement and guidance the most? I wonder, if the Compassion workers were spending time talking about sex and puberty to my 18-year old instead of having her color pictures of animals to send to me with her letter, maybe she wouldn't have gotten into this mess.

Yesterday, I received a letter from Compassion and a final letter from my child (which, at times, sounds as if someone told her what to write). The Compassion letter states on one line, "Althought it is discouraging to see her start a family at such a young age, it may be helpful to understand that cultural values often influence these situations." So I ask myself, if its true that culture influences such situations, why should it be discouraging? Isn't it perfectly natural for a matured woman to start thinking about being a mother and being in a relationship? One of my cousins got married right out of high school and is getting ready to have her fourth child and she's not even 25 - something we might not embrace ourselves (because of certain other cultural influences), a circumstance we might consider difficult, but it doesn't have to be discouraging. Do Africans have to aspire to wait to start a family until they reach the age Americans are when they tend to start families these days?

I know all of this sounds like a rant and that I'm simply blaming Compassion for what has transpired. But at the moment, these are simply my raw thoughts and emotions on questions that I hope to get some answers. And I'm not against child sponsorship either - we will continue to support the other child we are sponsoring (although I may have to give some thought before taking on another one that I surmise Compassion is already sending my way). Child sponsorship, with all of its problems, is an awesome way to change the life of a child who would otherwise have little chance of success, and Compassion - as well as many other child sponsorship programs, are changing the lives of millions of children. But such a circumstance, such a dilemma, accentuates the weaknesses of the methodology behind a ministry of this kind and should cause us to question if there is a better way - a better way to visit the stranger and the orphan, a better way to make poverty history, and a better way to provide love and care to those who have been deprived of it.