Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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One day we visited an HIV Orphanage where I fell in love with a little boy named Tuan. He’s 14, though he doesn’t look it, knows a little bit of English and we just seemed to hit it off right away. He took me by the hand and led me up three flights of stairs into what looked like a relaxed version of a classroom. He led me straight to the revolving globe sitting by the window and asked me to show him where I lived. I rotated the globe until it got to Winnipeg and pointed. “Win-nee-pet,” he said slowly in his little accent. I smiled and nodded encouragingly. “Winnepet,” he said again.

Then he took the globe, spun it to Vietnam and pointed to it and then to himself. I asked him where he wanted to go visit someday and he pointed to South Korea and said “Seoul”. He then pulled out different maps and we looked at them. This is something I frequently do on my own at home. I can look at maps for hours and wonder about all the amazing places. Yet here I was in Vietnam, sharing this love of cartography with a little boy.

 
Its a Catholic orphanage, so he opened a cupboard and pointed to a picture of  Jesus taped up on the wall and then to his heart. Then he pointed at me and then back at Jesus, he wanted to know what I thought of Jesus. I told him that I loved Jesus very, very much. A massive smile broke across his face and said that he did too.  I realized that I was looking at my little brother and we’ll always be connected by one thing, the love of our Saviour and our Father in heaven.  It was such a simple moment, but I will never forget it. 
 
When we were finished with the maps and globes, he led me by the hand back downstairs to where the rest of my teammates were feeding the little babies in the kitchen. Tuan had to wait until they were fed before he could eat, so I tried to help him pass the time by teaching him rock, paper scissors. Then he pulled out some paper and we played a bunch of rounds of X and O’s.

After Tic Tac Toe, I took the pen and began drawing all sorts of animals for him. Then I’d write their names and say them outloud so he’d lean what they were called in English. It was alot of fun. Sometimes he’d draw animals and ask what they were called. Sadly, we only got to spend about an hour and a half there and as I waved goodbye I hoped that I’d be able to come back and see him again and if not, that he’d be able to visit Seoul someday, just like he dreams of doing.