Day 1 Blessings

Our first day at the orphanage went a little better than I had expected. I’m sure those that had never been to the orphanage were in a bit of a shock, but it was pretty much how it usually is, maybe even a little quieter since most of the older kids are in school and we will only see them for a few days.

It is still survival of the fittest at the orphanage, don’t get me wrong. Pretty much all of them are bruised and scratched from either hurting themselves or having others hurt them.

There are quite a few new children there since I was last here. Two little girls that look as if they could be twins that look around 4-6, a boy with down syndrome and probably quite a few other special needs, quite a few new babies, and one older boy that we have never seen.

It is so hard to see new kids come, especially the older ones. There is a boy that we call Taylor because he looks just like Shark Boy (Taylor Lautner) and he came to the orphanage last year. He is so smart and sweet and he still remembers his parents’ phone number. They haven’t been able to get a hold of his parents yet so soon they will put out ads for his biological parents and if they don’t hear anything back they will start his adoption papers so that he can get adopted. He is such a sweetheart and it breaks my heart to see him there. Later in the afternoon Annie was taking some pictures on a small digital camera and Taylor asked to try it. He is so stable and good with a camera; you can tell he is so bright. He continued to go around the room taking pictures of everyone. When he came over to me I was with one of the new little girls that we named Dora and we were in front of the window. He held up the camera but noticed that the picture would not be good because of the sun in the background so he shook his head and grabbed my hand so that he could take me to the other side of the room with better lighting. I pray that they find his biological parents soon before he has to spend too long in the orphanage or even that they get his paperwork done so that he can leave, he truly is one of the sweetest boys.

This blog is a bit jumbled, but when we first got to the orphanage in the morning a few of the nannies were there and then crazy little Mia came running out and bounced me her little soccer ball and then grabbed my hand smiling and “ran” as best as she could with her leg with me in tow. She is 8 now and we’re not sure exactly what her special need is. She doesn’t talk and in the past she usually kept to herself and just watched from a far. It’s the little things like seeing her smile, laugh, and pull me into the big kid room that are blessings to me.

Shannon and Makenna made us little journals with the Bible verse that we picked out for this trip and ourselves and decorated them for us. They aren’t very big but Shannon gave us one challenge: to write down at least one blessing from that day that we saw in the orphanage. Sure, these kids are in orphanages and most don’t have forever families and may never get that chance, but I can see a few blessings from today. My first would definitely have to be Mia interacting more and even laughing now, this may seem so minute to some people, but to me it really is a blessing considering I have seen how she has been the past 3 years of her life. Another blessing that I saw happened when we went upstairs to the 5^th floor where most of the babies and rooms are. We went into the middle age room and I saw my little boy, John. He was on his rocking horse, of course. He loves that horse; the rocking and the falling when people pick him up are definitely his two favorite things.

I walked over to John and surprisingly felt a sense of peace come over me. I had thought that I may lose it when I saw his small fragile body that is around the size of a 2-3 year old, definitely not a 4 year old. Or maybe even the fact that he still doesn’t talk or stand by himself without help would have made me cry, but surprisingly I didn’t. He is still smiley John when you give him attention and tickle him and he is still standing up with some help and walking around for a while. Later in the afternoon he even stood by the table with some support and fed himself his snack. These little improvements made it a bit better for me to see him this year.

I think that it may have also had something to do with our trying to move him to a foster care program in Beijing that is for blind special need children. I plan on talking to the director with Shannon at one point this week to talk to them about this possibility of moving him. We had someone talk to Chenzhou previously asking about it and supposedly their response was that they would love to. So hopefully they still feel that way and the pictures that I brought will help them decide as well.

These little improvements with John are so small but so great in my eyes. Is he where he should be at 4 years old? Definitely not. But I am trying to count as many blessings as I can, because like the man that came to our church said before I left home, we are all blessed, no matter what (he was born dead for 18 minutes and has cerebral palsy).

That message gave me so much hope and it makes me want to look for the blessings that God has given these children and me so much more. He loves these children even more than we do and I know He has a perfect plan for each of them, I’m just glad that I get to be a very small part of it.

Ok it’s almost time to get ready for our day here so I better go. Sorry this is a bit scatterbrained and went off in one direction, but this is how I’m feeling right now so I guess it’s better than nothing. I’ll try to give a more detailed account of our day today later. Please keep the prayers coming; they are greatly appreciated.