Sam's Story

With a birth mother in prison and an extended family unable to care for him, Sam was a newborn utterly alone in the world. Abandoned in the hospital, he saw several prospective adoptive families come and go.  

But Sam was far from unwanted: his Mom and Dad just hadn't found him yet. Finally, one day, they walked through the door and knew him at first sight. Here at last was the little boy for whom they'd waited and prayed. It was a match made in heaven—but getting him out of the hospital and into their arms for good required a lot of earthly paperwork. Thankfully, our staff was there to do the job, supported by our donors in the United States. In 2016, after two years of work, his adoption was finalized.

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Bethany's Story

“Bethany” was born into a highly unstable Roma family. Although she initially went home with her birth mother, Bethany later returned to the hospital with severe illness due to neglect. Child welfare workers visited the home and discovered the dangerous situation, so Bethany was removed from her mother’s custody and remained in the hospital.

Weeks went by, then months. Although she had healed from her illness, Bethany stayed on alongside the many other parentless children. Prospective adoptive parents came and went, but sadly, it became evident that Bethany’s beautiful Roma/African ethnicity was presenting an obstacle to permanent placement. 

One day, Corina got a phone call completely out of the blue. The voice on the other end of the line belonged to a woman who had adopted a daughter from our ministry 13 years ago. “I’ve had such a vivid dream; I can’t shake it,” she began. “I keep dreaming about a little dark-skinned girl who is crying and in trouble. It seems like I am supposed to help her. Tell me: do you know of a little girl like this who needs a family?” Of course, Corina knew of a little girl exactly like that. And the God who undoubtedly sent the dream knew too. Bethany is now adopted and thriving.

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Philip's Story

"Philip" was weak from the beginning. Born a preemie, the squalid conditions and neglect at home wreaked havoc on his tiny body. Finally, his birth mother abandoned him at the hospital, saying she couldn't raise the sickly child. Her decision probably saved his life, but without a family, his prospects were dim.

But God saw Philip, and He made a way. An American missionary living in Romania took him out of the hospital and began the adoption process, with help from our social workers. Today, Philip is healthy and thriving, and his cheerful personality is the joy of the family. He and his 13-year-old sister (also adopted) recently enjoyed a visit from their American grandparents, who spoiled them as all grandparents should. Not only does Philip have a home; he has one in which he will grow up hearing about the Savior.

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Dylan's Story

For nineteen years, year after year after year, this quiet and kind couple waited and tried to have a child of their own. When they first reached out to Romania Reborn, we knew immediately that they would be special parents to a lucky child, but we did not anticipate how beautiful it would be.

Dylan was a shy child, left abandoned early in life due to his significant heart problems. When a child is left for medical reasons, finding a family ready to care for those medical needs long term can be challenging. But for Dylan’s new parents, the couple who had been waiting for nineteen years, the path was certain. They knew that Dylan was meant to be theirs.

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Andra & Angie's Story

In 2008, neighbors of a young, Roma woman heard faint cries coming from her apartment. When authorities arrived, they found that “Andra” (3) and “Angie” (2) had been locked in the apartment alone without food or water for almost a week. Their mother had simply abandoned them there. Severely dehydrated, starving, and suffering from rat bites, these sisters were almost dead.

Thankfully, their story didn’t end in tragedy. We found a foster family for Andra and Angie, where they have grown up surrounded by love.

However, we know that every abandoned child desires to know that they permanently belong. So, we spoke with their foster parents about adoption. Not surprisingly, they loved the girls and had wanted to adopt them for a while. Unfortunately, they could not financially support the girls without the foster parent salary. Knowing it was better for the girls to be adopted, we promised continued financial support until the family is more financially secure. With this weight lifted, they immediately started the paperwork to make Andra and Angie their daughters. After one of the fastest adoptions in our history, Andra and Angie now belong. Rescued from abandonment and death, they are building a new future with their forever family!

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"Romania's Got Talent" Star Shows the Power of Family

Tragically, many children like Lorelai are locked away in institutions.

by Jayme Metzgar

Last Friday, the TV show "Romania's Got Talent" featured a performance that has since gone viral all over the world. Fourteen-year-old Lorelai Moşneguţu, who was born without arms, sings and plays the piano with her feet in a performance that brings the whole room to tears. It is a moving example of the power of the human spirit to overcome obstacles.

But Lorelai's backstory is even more remarkable. Asked about her parents by the judges, Lorelai replies that "Mama Vio" is there with her. Intrigued, the judges inquire why she calls her mother "Mama Vio." Lorelai explains that she was abandoned at birth, and that she has been living with Mama Vio in placement since she was a baby. The judges then ask for Mama Vio to come out on stage and be recognized, before finally listening to Lorelai sing. Her stunning, joyful performance shows the difference a family can make in the life of an abandoned child, especially one with special needs.

What would happen to baby Lorelai today?

What many people may not realize is that in Romania today, an abandoned child like Lorelai would be at much higher risk for long-term institutionalization than a child without disabilities. Romanian law forbids abandoned children under age two from being placed in institutions, preferring that they go to foster families. However, the law makes an exception for children with handicaps. As a result, many babies with even minor physical deformities are placed into special needs institutions, where lack of love and individual care often give rise to long-term mental, physical, and emotional damage.

In our experience over two decades of working with abandoned children, this consigning of handicapped babies to a loveless fate happens far too often. In a child welfare system that is already failing to find families even for healthy children, it's convenient to find a reason to place children in institutions. But this is neither an acceptable nor a humane solution.

Here at Romania Reborn, our privately-funded Romanian social workers have worked to save children with disabilities from this fate, placing them into families. We would love to see family-based care become a priority throughout Romania, through legal reforms and increased partnerships with NGOs like ours. Unfortunately, Romanian child welfare authorities often view NGOs with suspicion rather than treating them as partners.

It's time to let Romania's compassion show

In watching the video of Lorelai's performance, it is clear that Romanians are compassionate, warm, and accepting people. Most Romanians do not realize how their government is handling the cases of children just like this one. Many beautiful souls like Lorelai are missing from Romanian society, because they are locked away in institutions that are unworthy of the Romanian people.

As Romania rightfully celebrates this young girl's inspiring performance, it should also renew its commitment to the welfare of children with disabilities. It would be wonderful to see more Romanian families follow "Mama Vio's" example in giving a home to a disabled child. Every child deserves, needs, and belongs in a family.

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How Abandonment Drives Child Trafficking

by Caleb Loomis

Editor’s Note: In recent years, Americans have become increasingly aware of the heinous reality of human trafficking and modern-day slavery. What many do not know is that this important issue is often linked to the plight of orphaned and abandoned children, who are significantly more vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation.

The following article was written by Caleb Loomis, a Government major at Patrick Henry College with a concentration in International Politics and Policy. Last summer, Caleb served as an intern at Romania Reborn. We’re grateful for the many hours he invested in our ministry, including researching the connection between child abandonment and human trafficking. For more in-depth reading, source documents are linked.

Romanian children are surfacing throughout Europe as beggars, thieves, and prostitutes. The Romanian mafia (and other international criminal groups) recruit these children from the streets and proceed to exploit them for maximum profit.

The Roma ethnic population—often referred to as “gypsies”—are among Romania’s most vulnerable. Living on the streets, Romani children are an easy target for criminal networks. Uncared for by their birth parents, these children are left to protect themselves.

In 2001 Romania suspended international adoption, eventually banning it in 2004. Romani children are adversely impacted, because most Romanian families will not consider adopting a child of Romani background. The Roma are subject to acute discrimination, although the majority of abandoned children are Romani.

Child abandonment is so common that 70,000 Romania children are growing up in an institution, rather than a home. The lucky ones are abandoned at hospitals, where they may be adopted as infants. Once institutionalized, their chances of finding a family quickly fade.

Corina Caba, founder of Hope House Family Center in Oradea, believes that there is no substitute for a functional family. Children need the love and safety of a home. Romanian youth who have been denied a family—whether due to bereavement or abandonment—deserve to have a home. Caba is passionate about finding a permanent, caring family for every displaced child within her influence.

When interviewed, Caba expressed her concern over the sale and purchase of children. Some parents “rent” their babies to the Romanian mafia. The infants are drugged into passivity and used by professional beggars to conjure greater sympathy and donations. Caba also purports that Romanian children are smuggled abroad to beg for money.

Caba concedes that she is overwhelmed. The task of finding a home for Romanian youth is more than social services can handle, let alone one non-governmental organization (NGO). She pleads for Christians everywhere to pray. If only two families from every Romanian church extended their home to a child, the Romanian orphan crisis would subside.

Most of these children are not technically orphans, however. They have parents. In order to be eligible for adoption, social workers must find all of a child’s living relatives, and all must express a desire to have no relationship with the child. In the case of an abandoned child, this is no simple task. Consequently, less than 3% of children in Romania’s care are eligible for adoption.

Once the children turn two years old, they are transferred to state residence where children are seldom adopted. At age 18, they graduate from state residences and are afforded no national assistance. Poorly equipped to enter a competitive workforce, graduates will be forced to take unusual risks to survive. They are ripe for criminal exploitation.

Due to its geographical position between the East and the West, Romania acts as a gateway to Europe. The European Commission purports that Romanian children are smuggled into Italy, Spain, and Germany—where they are forced by their handlers to steal, beg, and prostitute themselves.

The US identifies Romania as a major supplier of forced labor in the 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report. The report not only highlights Romania’s failure to assist exploited children, but notes a distressing trend: “The prevalence of children in the victim population increased from 319 [in 2011] to 370 in 2012.” The report also includes this chilling finding: “Traffickers who recruit and exploit Romanian citizens are overwhelmingly Romanian themselves, typically seeking victims from the same ethnic group or within their own families.” (Emphasis added.)

The U.S. Embassy in Romania notes similar trends. Officials report that criminal groups have become increasingly sophisticated. Law enforcement is encountering new patterns, as Romanian children are being moved in greater numbers to more locations.

Since Romania’s admission to the EU in 2007, smuggling minors internationally has become easier. Border regulations have been reduced, making the illicit transport of human cargo possible. Bribery and the use of fake ID’s at the border is not uncommon or unsuccessful. Moreover, specialized law enforcement has all but vanished. As of 2009, the National Agency Against Trafficking in Persons was defunded. Consequently, Romania’s children are being exploited in growing numbers.

David Batstone, co-founder of Not for Sale (an international anti-slavery group), reported to CNN that: “By and large, local police turn a blind eye to these crimes and social services for the victims are practically nonexistent.” While Romania officially prohibits the transportation of individuals for purposes of forced labor (Law No. 678/2001), it has poorly enforced this standard.

Aftercare programs, designed to re-integrate victims into society, are also underfunded. No government grants are allocated to NGOs. Privately-funded NGOs are still able to effectively serve victim populations, however. Not for Sale runs an extensive rehabilitation program without government grants. Similarly, Hope House is able to shelter abandoned children—while trying to place them in a permanent family—because of magnanimous donors through the U.S. nonprofit Romania Reborn. But NGOs like Not for Sale and Hope House are the anomaly.

Batstone concludes, “Whenever the poor and vulnerable do not have access to legal justice, they will be exploited.” Until Romania expedites its adoption laws and facilitates strong aftercare programs, Romanian youth will be exposed to unnecessary risks.

Get involved:

Click here to help a child escape abandonment and find a forever family!

Faith Like a Child: Gina's Story

Sometimes God uses one simple, faith-filled action as the seed from which to grow a miracle. A young boy gives up his modest lunch, and five thousand are fed. A widow drops two tiny coins into the offering box, and untold generations are challenged toward faith and generosity.

In the case of little “Gina,” an entirely new life came through a very simple act of faith indeed. We just heard her sweet story this week from our orphanage director, Corina.

Abandoned as a newborn, Gina spent her first year of life primarily in institutions. In the region of Romania where we work, private charities often send workers into hospitals to help care for abandoned children, rendering their living conditions (while still less than ideal) far better than they once were. Thanks to these volunteers, it’s rare today to find the hollow-eyed, utterly emaciated children we saw so often in the 1990s.

But sadly for Gina, she was shuffled from one place to another during her year of abandonment, missing out on the volunteer caregivers. By the time she came to our attention, she looked like an abandoned child we might have met twenty years ago. Weak, malnourished, and barely able to take food or lift her head, no visitor would have guessed she was nearing her first birthday.

When a young couple approached Corina a short time later, seeking a newborn to join their family, her thoughts immediately turned to this frail baby still waiting in the hospital. Gina wasn’t quite the newborn they had requested . . . and her health was clearly fragile. But the couple agreed to come and visit her.

The day of the visit came. The prospective parents, not knowing what to expect, tentatively followed Corina through the hallway of the hospital, passing windows of crib-filled rooms. Finally, they pushed open Gina’s door and entered softly. The weak, neglected little baby stirred, looked up into the gentle, eager faces . . . and reached toward them, beckoning to be held.

That was all it took. The couple knew their daughter when they saw her. There was no doubt: “She’s ours.”

Gina went home just before Christmas. Today, just a few weeks later, she has already made tremendous strides, growing healthy, gaining weight, and already learning to crawl. She couldn’t be more loved.

And it all began with that first, impulsive, needy act of faith, as a baby who had never known love summoned all her meager strength to reach out her arms to her unknown visitors.

Do we have the eyes to see our own need, and the faith to respond as this child did? There is One who has quietly entered our lives and stands waiting to heal and restore us. May we daily reach for Him.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back from captivity.'” (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

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