So this month we are living slightly differently from last month. We are in HeNan province in China, in Jiaozuo city and we are volunteering with a charity called C.O.A.T., specifically on a project called Eagles Wings.
The charity, started by an Australian woman named Lynda and supported by churches in Australia, the US and the UK, works with children here who have special needs. These are kids who have typically been abandoned by parents (who are likely to have been unable to have the financial resources necessary to raise such a child, with no governmental support available).
Eagles Wings has a number of homes where the children live and it runs a school for many of the kids to go to every day. Each of the houses are run by Ayis (which means Aunties) on rotating day and night shifts who take care of the kids in whatever way they need.
- House 6 is home to a number of children aged between 3 and 9 who are unable to walk unaided (with varying degrees of severity), whether because of cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy or spina bifida.
- House 5 is where the babies and toddlers are looked after, including one blind boy, three who have or had cleft palates, three who were born premature, one with closed ear canals and one with nevus.
Houses 3 & 4 are based in a state run orphanage where they have an entire floor to themselves. 4 houses the severely disabled, whether physically, emotionally or mentally and 3 houses kids aged 5 to 13 with a range of moderate disabilities.
House 2 has four vision-impaired children and the kids that are able to walk unaided.
Team members of both H.O.P.E. and Rescued Identity are staying in Houses 2, 5 and 6 (and we make occasional visits to Houses 3 & 4), and myself, Sara and Peter are staying in House 1. House 1 is the home of Donna who has moved here from Florida with her family to oversee the running of the Eagles Wings project. Donna and her three adopted girls, Marissa aged 15, Lindsay aged 13 and Kristin aged 9, moved here and she fosters two children now as well, Liu Er aged 12 and Hong Wei aged 14.
This month we are helping out around the homes, in the school, at the orphanage and on other projects and by just generally being present in the lives of these kids.
