God loves to give us good gifts.
This month, God gave my team the focus of having childlike wonder in honor of Christmas and the fact that we were working in an orphanage with children. And He did not disappoint. He snuck in so many ways to bring me this childlike wonder and joy. Whether it was through playing with the kids, seeing beautiful sunsets, drinking hot cocoa and watching Christmas movies, decorating sugar cookies while listening to Christmas music, or doing a team Christmas scavenger hunt, these made us feel that childlike wonder. My favorite example was that me and a few of my teammates stumbled upon a giant mound of roses in the middle of a field where they were getting rid of them because they were infected/undesirable. We asked the farmer if we could have the roses and he looked at us like we were crazy. Why would we want these roses? Yet we thought they were the most beautiful perfect roses and we were prancing around choosing them from the pile and making our own piles high of roses to bring back to our apartment, filling jars with them and placing them everywhere. We even arranged some to give to the Tias (the caretakers). They gave me so much joy seeing them and smelling them all of the time.
And this made me think. These roses are kind of like us. Others may make us feel undesirable/unwanted and we ourselves may often feel unworthy and flawed because of our pasts and our sins yet God sees us as beautiful and perfect. Each one of us. Others may abandon us and leave us empty yet God seeks us out and sees us as a treasure worth everything. We are a gift to God and He takes so much joy in us.
The orphanage my team and I were working at was called For His Children. It was out in the beautiful countryside of Latacunga, Ecuador. We stayed in an apartment that was connected to the orphanage. Most of the children we worked with had disabilities ranging from cognitive delay, Down’s syndrome, autism, Beal’s syndrome, etc. and were ages five to twenty. There were also about six little girls ranging from infants to age five without disabilities that stayed on the bottom floor. Most of our day was spent helping to feed them at meal times and interacting with them/playing with them and also helping a few of them with therapy.
I fell in love with these children. There were a few of them that I connected with especially deeply. Some of my favorite moments with them was going on long walks outside along the roads pushing them in their wheelchairs, after-dinner dance parties (we were laughing like crazy with the Tias copying each other’s dance moves), and building a tent with them. Another was reading Disney princess stories in Spanish, letting one of the girls choose who got to be which character, and then acting it out. A few of them found quite a fascination with the Itsy Bitsy Spider song and playing a game I made up called “donde esta mi nariz?”. They all had their own unique personalities and some of them were extremely intelligent. Ah they were just so much fun and I learned so much from them.
The fateful day came when we had to leave these precious children who stole our hearts. It was much harder than we expected even though we were only there for two weeks. The hardest moment for me was when one of the girls I really connected with started sobbing when she realized we were leaving, and she is usually always happy and never gets emotional (even our host said she usually never does this). It was so hard. Even many of the Tias were crying at our departure.
Many of these children had been abandoned as infants by their parents because of their disabilities or being unwanted, left alone and found on the streets or in hospitals where they were then taken in by For His Children to be cared for. Many of my teammates, myself included, were struggling with the idea of us abandoning these children- how could we love them and pour into them and then just leave them as others had?
Yet as we were processing this and it was explained to us later, that little time of intense love and care can make such a huge impact on their lives. An example is Jesus’ ministry. He travelled around on short term missions yet touched everyone’s lives he came in contact with. He made an impact they would never forget.
And just as God blessed us with the roses that brought us so much joy in the moment, they too eventually withered away. But this gift left a lasting impression on my heart for just how good God is and how deeply He loves us.
(Please consider sponsoring these children with monthly donations or if you know of anyone who would be interested in adopting go to http://www.forhischildren-ecuador.org/ to find out more. And I would absolutely love to tell you more about each one of these children)
