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DAYS 8-17 Part 1 – Mission Begins
Here is where my blog becomes very word intensive. This is
because there are some restrictions on what I can say or post up (and no photos of the Orphanage, the kids there, or China flags), and so
if it is not your cup of tea (to read a lot of words), then I refer you to skip ahead to
when my South Korea
trip begins.
Also, I will become a lot more philosophical and serious
here, so again if you only like the corny side of me, you should probably skip
ahead to South Korea .
***
Our theme song for the trip: 10,000 Reasons. For some reason, it kept being chosen to be sung at devotion, so if you wanna get an authentic feel for the trip, press the play button! :-D
Together with my team of 19, we traveled together to the
city of MX . The city is actually
working together with my mission team on this project, but for the sake of
privacy, I will not be mentioning the city, nor names.
The purpose of this trip was to show some love and give care
to abandoned children in China .
Formerly China
had a one child policy, and sometimes when the child born to the parents is
handicapped either physically or mentally, the parents can’t handle it for whatever reason and give
them up, sometimes also so that they can try for another kid.
The Organization (henceforth referred to as the ORG )
I was with…the founder began to help out after observing the high mortality
rate in these orphanages. Anyway, in the locations where the ORG
is currently involved, the mortality rate has dropped drastically.
That’s why it’s important to help out and sponsor a child.
(Contact me for more details if you want to help)
(Above: My room for the 2 weeks. Shared of course.)
When I was first given a tour of the Orphanage, I noted that
the kids were divided into 4 rooms: Babies, Toddlers (not a baby but up to 9),
Older Girls, Older Boys. We went to each room for brief introductions and play
with them, and I must say I felt really out of place even though I pasted on a
big smile and waved like I was their long lost friend. I wondered if I could do
anything at all for them.
Then when I was in the Toddler Room, one of the boys crawled
up to me and wanted to toss a balloon ball around with me. And so I started to
play with him, and another boy crawled up to play also.
They were crawling cos they can’t walk even though they were
around 7-8, but that didn’t stop them from having a great time. And they
crawled REALLY FAST !
I think one of the misconceptions that folks like me tend to
have is that those with physical handicaps must be miserable. No doubt some
are, but from what I could see, many of them go to rehab, and try to live as
happy as they can.
So I played with these kids until one of them got a
nosebleed shortly after (from too much happiness I hope)…and so that was that.
But it definitely allowed me to warm up to them.
I think I should mention by now that there was still a
significant language barrier even for me. My vocabulary was quite limited even
though I could speak Mandarin without an overly foreign accent, but that also
meant that my comprehension was only about 60-70%, and even worse when the
speaker has a strong local accent. But I shouldn’t complain, most of my
teammates couldn’t speak mandarin at all, and they were doing amazing.
I went back to my hotel that night and I can’t say I know
how I felt. It was such a jumble of emotions inside of me. I felt apprehensive
about the work ahead, happy to be there, sad for the children, and all those
feelings at the same time.
I prayed that God would show me what to do.
***
(Above and Below: Devotion time to mentally ready ourselves. We met like this daily, sometimes twice)
Having devotions with the group in the mornings and
sometimes in the evenings really helped. I think I needed it very much to get
centered on the work. It wasn’t going to be all about my issues. We were going
to be doing this together.
I needed to know that.
The second day was our first full day. We arrived just as a
lot of the kids were going off to their classes. I was given the older boys to
work with (my choice) and so I arrived with my two Aussie mates, and this nutty
American girl to the room to find that only 3 boys were left there. So we took
the 3 boys downstairs to the Orphanage playground.
Right off the bat, I began to face things I had no idea how
to deal with.
-
Grubs, an 11 yr old boy, would pick up candy wrappers
and lick them, and then run off to find garbage bins. He would open them and
rummage through to find food. Note: He’s VERY WELL
FED but somehow it doesn’t satisfy him. We
had to chase him, and my two Aussie mates had to carry him kicking and
screaming back to the playground.
-
Smiles, a 12 yr old boy, who has the widest smile of
all, was playing in the sand pit when suddenly he grabbed a bunch of sand and
put it inside his mouth. The teacher brought him to the bathroom to wash off
his mouth.
-
Monkey, an 11 yr old boy, said nothing and just played
by himself in the sandpit. I tried to play with him, but he just ignored me.
All in all, not the most terrible start. It was a good,
gentle way to break me into the work. Also, it allowed me to see the tremendous
job the teachers were doing.
After our lunch break, I met the others who got back from
class. The more noisy ones naturally got our attention as they would run up to
you and grab you.
There was this particularly hilarious 15 yr old girl who
would constantly come up to me and bump me, as if challenging me.
So I’ll look at her and go,”WUT WUT?” in my most cocky face
and she’ll burst out laughing and back off.
It became our thing for the rest of the time there, and I
nicknamed her 'Cocky'. LOL
***
We ate street food a couple of times while we were there. I was a bit wary at first, but it turned out to be quite good.
(Below: Seasoned lamb skewers from the stall above.)
(Above: The owner of the fried yogurt stall (left) saw us sitting there, and naturally, as lady on the right was a celebrity, she gave us a free one to sample! Quite yummy!)
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