A Corruption of Touch

Remember those final days of childhood summer camps? You just made a bunch of great friends...or at least one good friend...only to leave them for the rest of your life. Addresses, email and snail, are exchanged (a transaction usually shown to be worthless later).

Well, imagine that you've just been at a month-long summer camp and made something like 50 great friends with the kids. Only, when you leave:

-the kids, when beat up, scraped with glass shards, or abused, have no one to run to for comfort or protection.

-most of the gifts and clothes you've given them are stolen...by the staff!

-the food standards -- kept high with visitors -- go back to monotonous, poorly cooked recipes. Worms sometimes included.

-the closest thing they have to a dad is gone

Goodbye suddenly gets way tougher. Especially as you think about what it's like from the other side. And, so, it was no surprise when, in June of 2006, 7/8-year-old Ukrainian orphan Roma threw his arms around me and said "I love you. A lot."

The kiss on the lips was a surprise.

The whole summer I was struggling to cope with the orphans' desire to hold hands and sit on my lap. I had never kissed one.

And while in America I worked at an orphanage and an elementary school. When kids tried to hug me, I was legally required to turn sideways to avoid the hug. When they try to sit in my lap, I have to come up quick with an excuse to stand up.

Whoa, wait a minute. What's up with this? The kids try to show physical affection. And we're required to discourage it with everything we can?

A Ukrainian 9-year-old boy, Kolya (we've already jumped one year ahead in time) will hold my hand if we're walking together. He'll hug me if I'm standing -- or ask to ride piggyback. He'll sit on my lap if I'm sitting, and turn to kiss me (yes, sometimes on the lips) at random times...even with dozens of people around.

For the other 11 months of the year, the only physical touch he experiences is beating and abuse.

Kolya's dad is dead. He calls me "papa," and has named himself my godson. Kolya's not odd. Other orphans do all these things I just mentioned above (like Styopa, Dima, Artur, Andrey, etc., etc.,....)

In America, I'd be banned from orphanages...and perhaps tried for mild child abuse. Especially if I allowed that kind of physical affection from an orphan, who's already been through so much!

Mightn't this affection be part of being that "father to the fatherless" spoken so much of in the Bible?

But the police-eye for child abuse in America has failed to stem the tide of child abuse (which, by the way, I find to be one of the most despicable crimes around...and I'm sure most of you agree). Instead, it has begun to place a taboo stamp on any legitimate affection between adults and their kids. Fathers used to kiss their kids. This is getting rare in our land. Teachers used to hug their students. This is disappearing. Older pastors, used to an age of sense, still hold the little kids in the church. Younger pastors, savvy to those occasional stories of sexual abuse, don't just avoid sexual abuse...they also avoid any show of affection.

And we're left with a more and more affectionless society. The prevelance of sexual crime is rising, and of course it is as long as we think that the answer is to remove, not lust and abuse, but all physical affection.

The parents in the Bible brought the kids to Christ so that He could touch them. It seems that He expressed love through physical affection. Never sexual affection, mind you...but physical affection nonetheless.

The mindset has become a part of me so much, that when another American worker, helping with orphans, sees me kiss a kid (which, after the kids trying so long, I'm finally starting to accept), I feel like his flags of "whoa, that's weird...maybe wrong..." go up. Other Ukrainians don't mind.

Am I just imagining the caution flags? Or does a fatherly physical gesture of affection like holding a kid on your lap or giving a hug, "nose wiggle," or kiss, really seem to you to be an inappropriate or even sexual gesture?

Your thoughts are GREATLY appreciated! Private messages are great if you'd rather not post publicly.

Note: Of course, in America, these things are currently unthinkable, due to suspicions of child abuse. In the USA I avoid them, without question. But that doesn't mean I agree with the viewpoint.