Heartbreaking

“thriving, underground child trafficking market in China.” Heartbreaking. 


About 3 weeks ago in southern China, 369 people were arrested for their involvement in child trafficking. When the arrests were made, 89 infants were rescued, some only a few days old, many of them drugged with sleeping pills to keep them quiet maybe while they moved them to the next location, maybe to make them more “marketable” (you know, buyers might want sweetly sleeping babies). I don’t know. I wonder how they got those 89 babies. 89. If it had been just 1 child, it would be sad. But, 89? 89 very tragic stories that represent too many more. Like more than 20,000 more every year, some say that more like 70,000 a year. Regardless, the total current number is into the millions. Millions. Heartbreaking.


There’s a website a Chinese parent started–Baobeihuijia.com–it literally means “Baby Come Home.” It’s dedicated to finding lost children. 3,000 families are registered there–such a small number in comparison to so many missing. Every post there is given an id number, and the parent enters information about the children they are looking for, what they were wearing, where they were lost. It’s not a regular stop of mine. But, it’s sobering when I do visit. A boy who was taken in 1990 at 2 years old. His mother says “still the tears flow.” A girl who went out to play and never came back. The parents haven’t stopped looking for her in 20 years. Some went missing more recently. Some have pictures. Some, instead, have a little cartoon illustration so typical of so many you see in China. I wonder if those families don’t want their child’s picture posted online, if they don’t know how to post the picture, or if they don’t even have a picture.

One ad in particular someone posted elsewhere online caught my attention. A family looking for their daughter. She was born July 2, 2005. And, 6 weeks later, on August 12th, she didn’t go missing; she was left by her parents. Google translate wasn’t cutting it for me. So, I had Helen translate the post for me.

The baby had heart disease. We had spent all our savings and wanted the society to take care of her. We felt so bad in our hearts. We went to several hospitals, and the doctors couldn’t help with it and asked us to change to other hospitals. So, we left her at the gate of a bar and called 110 [China’s 911]. After we saw the emergency medical staff take her to the hospital, we went back. We left her a note and bottle supplies. We felt so regretful and haven’t sleep well since then.

Her name is Mei Jun, meaning “an ordinary beauty.” She should be just over 6 years old now. I’m sure she was taken to the local orphanage in Yunnan province. After some time there, she may have been adopted. Today, she might be jumping into some pool somewhere with a big scar on her chest from  lifesaving heart surgery. Or, not. She simply may not have lived long enough to be adopted. Or, the orphanage staff may not have seen her as healthy enough to even make her paper ready to be adopted. Her birth family may never know. I wonder how their hearts can be healed. Heartbreaking. 

Part of me wishes I could go find them and listen to their heartache first hand. Maybe I could tell them about Lydia, show them a picture of her big smile–the one when her nose scrunches up and her eyes disappear. Maybe her story would bring them hope. And, maybe I could talk to them a little about grace, forgiveness, healing, and peace and how Someone I know who is in the business of healing broken hearts.