Here at Last

We are here!

Praise the Lord for that!

It has even been a safe and pretty easy journey getting here!

Although in the last two years I seemed to have forgotten just how long a 15 hour plane ride really feels like.

Or just how long a 30 hour day feels like.

But we are here.

And it’s  good to be back.

I really missed this place.

We arrived at Chenzhou on Friday afternoon and went to the orphanage right after.

Some of the nannies were waiting outside for us.

They got all excited when we got there which is encouraging.

They then took us to see the babies.

We went into the playroom and basically started playing with any baby we could find.

Most of the babies I knew were so big!

Some had even moved into the big kid room already!

We didn’t stay in the room for very long.

We headed down to the crib rooms.

In one room we went in there were about 7 babies and they said they were all new babies.

Not sure what “new” qualifies as but 7 seems like too many to me.

Finally we headed down to the big kids room.

Which is where I missed the most.

As soon as we walked down the hall Gracie came running down to me and jumped right into me with the biggest hug ever all the while screaming whoknowswhat in chinese.

Two years later and she still remembers me.

My biggest fear was that she would forget me.

But from just one glance she knew exactly who I was.

Her “Jie Jie” as she calls me. (big sister)

I think she ran around to every nanny about 4 times each and told them each who I was.

She was so excited.

She grabbed my hand and dragged me into the big kid room and the sight broke my heart.

Almost double the amount of kids from last time and not one healthy kid.

The special needs were very severe.

In one corner there was about 10 babies sitting in bumbo seats.

Some banging their head, a few crying, some lying so still you wouldn’t believe they were still breathing.

In another corner was Sky, a girl who is close to my age. She hangs her head and just sits on the bench all day long.

Sitting next to her were a few girls around 10 looking scared to death. They looked at us with terrified little eyes and clung to each other.

Next to them was a 13 year old boy with no muscle. It looked like his muscles had completely withered away.

We had never seen him before.

The list of children goes on and on.

As Gracie dragged me around I got to say hi to lots of children I knew.

Some looking much better, and some looking much worse.

It was loud and chaotic and stressful but I was so glad to be back.

After just a short while it was time for us to leave.

We said goodbye to the kids and walked back to our hotel.

For dinner we went to a restaurant I had never been.

It was so loud and filled with smoke.

We sat and coughed through the entire meal.

As if we weren’t being stared at enough.

Everyone was so tired.

It had been a long and some what depressing day.

On Saturday morning we had a devotion in our hotel room.

14 people in one small room.

We talked about what we had seen at the orphanage.

Everyone felt pretty helpless.

We all had so much we wanted to do.

But we are only here a week.

And what exactly can we do?

We came to the conclusion that we need to just love.

Because after all

God is love.

After devotion we decided to go on a “scenic mountain tour”

Which ended up being about as hard as the great wall.

When we thought we were close to the top we realized we were only half way.

The only thing that kept me going was the fact that there were cable cars at the top to take down.

By the way we found out that the safety regulations in China don’t seem to be the same as the US.

The scenery was beautiful though.

But I’m still not sure it was all worth it.

To finish off our Saturday we went out to dinner with the director and some of the nannies.

Communication is still hard between us.

But we are finding ways to connect.

Another fun fact that we learned is that the nannies really love spicy food.

Lucky for me I do too, but I’m not sure all the teammates had quite the same luck.

These first few days have been long and exhausting.

But amazing.

I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us for the rest of the week.

Please continue praying for the team and the orphanage.