Sunday, March 13, 2011

Suffer the Children

It’s funny how certain Bible verses stay with you all of your life.  I can’t remember a time, I haven’t known about “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”  The King James Version is so poetic, but for many American English speakers it’s hard to understand.  Thankfully, there are modern translations, which help less scholarly types like me to grasp what it means.

For example, suffer means let.  So, if you look at the NIV version, you’ll see Mark 10:14 as “When Jesus saw this (his disciples trying to keep the children from being brought to Him), he was indignant.  He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

The kingdom of God belongs to children such as these.  What does that mean?  It means children haven’t become jaded.  Believing in the unseen, having faith in things which are many times unfathomable, that’s what children are able to do – see God for who He is without having to have a logical explanation for all He’s done.

Today, I want to highlight a beautiful couple, who are friends of mine.  They were my neighbors until they decided to move away.  A few years ago they had a second child.  A beautiful girl named Alayna.  Alayna was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome shortly after birth.  For many people, this would have been such a devastation, but not for Jason and Rochelle.  They saw past the diagnosis to the fabulous little girl.  What is sad to me is not everyone can see past a diagnosis.  Many in the medical profession would have urged Jason and Rochelle to consider terminating because they were having a child with Down’s Syndrome.  As a society, we have forgotten what it means to “let the children come.”  If you were to ask Jason and Rochelle, they would tell you Alayna is precious, a gift from God, not a burden placed upon them.  How do I know this?  Because of how they write about her and their other son.  Because of how tirelessly they work to make people aware of how precious children with Down’s Syndrome are.  Because they have decided to adopt a child from Eastern Europe who is about Alayna’s age and who has Down’s Syndrome. 

In Eastern Europe and other places, children with disabilities are warehoused.  Placed in institutions where they don’t get love, physical contact, and the proper health care and nutrition all children should get.  No one “suffers the children” there.  Thankfully, there are special people like Jason and Rochelle, who want to help the “little children,” who have been abandoned and forgotten because God chose to make them different.

Jason and Rochelle need to raise $25,000 to bring Dariya home.  They have approximately $9,000.  If you would like to help, please consider making a donation to:

Reece's Rainbow
PO Box 4024
Gaithersburg, MD 20885


Make sure you put
"Jason & Rochelle Cannon - Dariya" in the memo section so it gets to their account. (The memo is only for people paying by check; if you use the link on their blog, it automatically goes into our account!)  You can access their blog at: http://lifeandtimesofalayna.blogspot.com/

Children had a special place in the heart of Jesus, and if we are to be brothers and sisters of Christ, we need to treat them as tenderly and lovingly as Jesus did.

1 comment:

  1. Oh Lisa this is beautiful and I am in tears reading it. Thank you for always being so sweet and advocating for our family. Our girls truly are a gift from God!

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