May 16, 2007

• Boyookwon (보육원) Kids... what are their backgrounds?

  Boyookwon is translated into English as "Children's Home," not "orphanage."  You see, only about 10 of the 80 children who live in this home are considered "true orphans."  These kids parents died when they were young or they were found as an infant at the steps of the children's home.  These kids have literally no relatives or family history.  Many of them, as they grow up here, consider the long tenured dorm mothers as their own parents.  All they have is what the home gives them, which isn't much. 

  The other 70 kids are here because of abuse, alcoholism, mental illness, poverty, or shame.  Some of the kids came from a broken home where the mother or relatives of the kids literally "hid" the children in a children's home and ran away from their abusive husband.  Many of these mothers fell into alcoholism so bad that they are now hospitalized and have little chance of ever recovering.  Other mothers abandoned their kids to their alcoholic father and then social services took the children from their incapable father and put them in homes.  Other childrens' mother or father died or disappeared when they were young, and their other parent was mentally ill and unable to care for them.  Some of these kids' parents divorced and the mother or father who was willing to care for them ran out of money and was unable to care for them while having to work crazy long hours, so out of "last hope" they brought their children here, hoping in a few years they will save enough money to take the kids back.  And finally some of the kids are simply results of an affair between married people and were put away in the childrens home because of the shame the knowledge of the child would bring on each family.  I think the government allows this because if the child was forced to live with their real parents the family of their parent would likely abuse them physically or verbally. 

  Lots of different scars here.  Of those 70, most of them also have cousins and aunts and uncles, some of whom are very rich, but these same relatives feel they have no responsibility for the kids here since they are not their own direct children.  Family identity is crucial in Asian cultures (China, Korea, Japan in particular).  To not have a family means you have no identity.  I'm learning just how important family is by living here.  Nearly all of the children here (those here not because of abuse) still want to live with their parent they know is alive, even if that parent is an alcoholic or shows little affection.  I guess as much as some people don't like their families, they can't ignore that they are made of the same flesh and blood.

  Isaiah 1:17 - Learn to do right!  Seek justice, encourage the oppressed.  Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the cause of the widow.

  Deuteronomy 10:18 - He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.

  Psalm 68:5 - A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling.

  • 7:39 am
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