Day 2 at the orphanage

It is 9pm now and I am about to go to sleep. We had a great day today. I woke up at 6am again, got ready and we all had breakfast at 8am. I was very happy because there was bacon at breakfast today and actual cold creamer on our table for the coffee so I didn't have to use hot milk. And there were these little chicken thingy's that tasted like chicken nuggets - those were yummy. I tried a biscuit yesterday with meat in it but didn't like it much. Lily informed us this morning that the meat is donkey - very interesting. I'm kind of glad now that I didn't eat a lot of it although several folks on the team did and didn't seem to be deterred from eating more even after finding out what it was. We got to the orphanage about 9:45 am and went upstairs to play with the little kids that we spent the morning with yesterday. Some of the girls brought these foam visors and foam stickers to decorate them and those were a hit. The kids were hilarious - they had their visors so covered in stickers, there was hardly any room left. I took a ton of pictures but to my frustration, when I tried to load them onto the computer tonight, it is saying it's a bad file format. They show up on my camera playback though so I don't get it. I put in a new memory card and hope to retrieve the pics from today later. I'm adding a few more good ones from yesterday for now and hope tomorrow the other memory card works and I can add ones from the day. 

So we went in to the room with mostly smaller kids and pretty much all the kids in there are sick with colds and stuff. They have this vinegar solution going in a crock pot in there and sure enough - it clears out your sinuses when you go in there. And the kids - so many of them had major runny noses. We were on nose patrol a lot in there. Luckily, we had lots of kleenex with us. Side note about the kleenex - most bathrooms here do not have toilet paper so you have to bring your own. Many of the bathrooms also don't have a toilet - it's more like a hole in the floor that you have to hover over. Bella calls them squatty potties which cracks me up. We have to use them at the orphanage but we try to avoid it as much as possible. Anyway, so back to my story - so we go in the "sick room" and the little girl I was telling you about yesterday was screaming. The workers were shaving her head - poor little thing - she was screaming the entire time. I asked Lily why they were doing that and she said so that they could put an IV in her head. We were in there about 45 minutes and in that time - her head got fully shaved, they gave her a bath and then they put an IV in her head. She screamed the whole time. I was watching them do all this and trying to make sure she was ok and wishing I could do something - it really breaks my heart when kids cry like that. I knew they weren't actually hurting her but still - what kid would want their head shaved and IV put in? I was about to burst into tears with her several times. It broke my heart. Everyone else was working on the visors with the other kids - helping them put the stickers on and stuff. I decided to make her a visor. I put hearts and stars and shapes on it and wrote "I am loved" on there. I know they don't speak English and the letters were in English but nevertheless I wanted to speak that over her. After the IV was in her head, she finally stopped crying but her whole body was doing that thing it does after sobbing so long where it still shakes and it's hard to get your breathing back to normal. Everything in me wanted to go in there and just hold her. Not that she'd want me to though cause she probably wouldn't. I peaked in on her through the window to the side room she was in and handed the nurse/caregiver the visors and told her it was for her. They handed it to her and she held it in her hand and looked at it. I took a few pictures of her holding it - it was so cute. She still looks just as beautiful without any hair - she definitely looks more like a baby with no hair. I'm not so sure that she is 2 - she's pretty small to be that young. Not sure. I need to find out her name. It's harder to find out names here because Chinese doesn't use letters of the alphabet so even if we had them write them - we would have no idea what we were trying to read. There is one young girl who lives there and also helps out - she is 20 and she knows a tiny bit of English and she has been trying to teach us some names. They are so hard to say and remember. I need to find out that little girl's name. It was interesting to me that she could hold the visor - after playing with her with the ball yesterday, I wasn't sure if she could hold anything. But today, I realized otherwise. We came back later in the afternoon and she had a tomato in her hand. She was trying really hard to eat it but her arms don't seem to bend right to raise up to her mouth - she is very smart though - she has figured out that if she goes up against the wall and props her arms up on the wall - she can then hold them steady to try and eat the tomato that's in her hand. Kids will find a way. It's amazing to see all the physical things these kids are overcoming. I did a lot of silent praying today for them - for healing, protection and for a spirit of peace over this one kid with down syndrome who kept hitting all the other kids. He kicked me in the shin and hit Kara quite a few times too. He has quite the aggressive nature. I was praying against that mean streak in him. He would go from super mean and hitting and scratching kids, even spitting on a few of them - to suddenly happy and jumping up and down. I felt so bad for the other kids in the room - they would put their arms up to shield him or run away form him but he would still manage to catch them off guard at times and hit them. Yesterday, I saw him scratch up one of the girls hands really bad. Not sure what the best thing to do with him would be. I was wanting him away from the other kids to protect them but also realizing he needs love too and obviously has something going on with him. It's a hard place - the workers are clearly trying to do the best for him and the other kids. 

After about 45 minutes in the room with the younger kids, Lily came and got us - the staff was going to teach us how to make dumplings. They had these little round pieces of the dough ready for us, as well as a meat and seasoning mixture and they showed us how to put the meat in and then fold the dumplings closed. It was quite comical - ours looked a mess compared to theirs and several of the staff and older kids were laughing often at ours and a few were taking pictures. Lily and some of the staff showed us a few times how to do it and we finally seemed to get it - although they still weren't near as pretty as theirs. I so wish my camera card would let me upload those pictures. 

After we made the dumplings, we got to sit down and eat with the special needs kids and eat them (cooked at this point of course). They were super yummy but very filling - we were all so stuffed. They also had this beef that looked sort of like roast beef and that was good. And some yummy veggies. 

After lunch, we left to let the kids have their naps. We went back to the hotel and I added me earlier blog about yesterday. That pretty much took the whole break. We were going to head back to the orphanage at 2:30 but we realized that the hotel here doesn't exchange money and we needed money so we can take the kids on an outing tomorrow and Sunday - some of the team were able to collect $1000 in orphanage donations - we get to use a portion of that to take the kids out for an activity which I know they will love and remember for a long time to come. And we also plan to print some photos to give them while we are here - including at least one enlarged photo for them to hang on the wall. They will love that - they are crazy about having their photos taken here. And then hopefully there is enough left over to buy a washing machine. The orphanage director said there is a new building being built next door that will replace this part of the orphanage so she said they didn't need much by way of supplies cause they don't want to collect a bunch of new stuff that they'll only have to move over. But she did say they could us a new washing machine. Anyway, so once we realized the hotel here doesn't exchange money like the one in Beijing did, the team decided to go to a bank. Me and Marsha were on our way down to meet in the lobby and were like 4 minutes late - while they were all waiting, some decided to go on to the bank and just come back and get us right after. Well, right after turned in to a full hour. I guess the bank would only let each person exchange a certain amount and they ran some kind of background check on each of them. Needless to say, we were all kind of bummed that our time with the kids this afternoon would be shortened. But... we were glad to realize before Saturday that the hotel didn't exchange money since the banks are closed on Sat and we definitely want to do an outing with the kids. 

We got back to the orphanage about 4pm and had an hour with the kids. We did the visor art project with the special needs kids and they too loved it. Then we stuck stickers on all of them. Several of the kids had hands completely covered in stickers. And many of them decided to stick a bunch on me too. I'm still finding them on my clothes. We spent that last hour between the two rooms with the younger sick kids and the special needs kids - they are next door to each other - I was back and forth quite a bit. When I saw one of the toddlers in the hall with the caregiver and she was heading back to that room, I wanted to peak in on that little girl who had the IV put in. She was sitting at the kids table and I was happy to see she wasn't crying anymore. She was just sitting there observing. She would stare back at me a lot but I couldn't get much reaction out of her. I went over to her and kneeled down next to her and rubbed her head and shoulder. It didn't seem to upset her but she still looked pretty skeptical. One of the ladies came over at this point and took the tape from the IV off her - she of course started crying again. I picked her up and started trying to console her by patting her back and rocking her back and forth. She kept screaming. Finally one of the caregivers came and grabbed her - she stopped crying immediately which made me realize she still hadn't warmed up to me and she had started crying from the IV tape but most of the crying after that was because I was holding her. It is interesting to me that this trip and the last trip in Costa Rica - I was drawn to two kids around that age who both wanted nothing to do with me picking them up or loving them. I think part of me senses something in both of them that is a fear of me, a skeptical nature, distrusting people in general - and it makes me wonder what they have been through and makes me want to love them even more. I so want to bring that little girl home. I wonder if we have any kind of medical help in the US that could fix her arms and legs being turned the way they are. I really don't know much about it. I just know she is a beautiful precious child that God loves very much. They all are. That little boy I mentioned yesterday that would cry and cry and only stop when Frank held him- same thing happened again today. That little boy is absolutely precious - he is missing both arms and has little parts of an arm on each side but they are not functional. He just loved Frank. Marsha connected with one little boy with a cleft lip who did not want anything to do with anyone else and likes to sit by himself on a chair in the middle of the room. When you try to come near him, he turns away. He was so fascinated by Marsha's glasses though - she was able to connect with him by showing them to him and letting him look through them. I got some really cute pictures of him getting really close to her with his head cocked sideways trying to figure those glasses out. Too cute! So many beautiful children - it is so heartbreaking to see so many of them in physical pain and need. I don't understand why children are born with these problems - I so wish we lived in a world where that was not the case and all children were completely healthy. But for those children who are not - here in China and I'm sure elsewhere - they get abandoned, left in orphanages - all because of things they cannot control and did nothing to deserve. It is truly unfair. I really feel that we as the body of Christ need to do more - I need to do more - to look after the precious little ones who have been rejected and left behind. Their earthly parents may have tossed them away but Jesus hasn't. And neither should we. 

Frank shared a scripture with us at devo this morning and I'll end by sharing it with you:

"... for Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!""  ~Romans 10:13-15

I challenge you to go be the feet of Jesus. Even if you're in a place like China where you can't necessarily preach with words, you can share the good news with your actions. Which reminds me of a saying I've heard recently - "preach the gospel everywhere you go and when necessary, use words". We can be Jesus to a lost and broken world. 

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