This past week has been filled with so much. So much laughter, so much joy, so much happiness. I was able to work directly with the kids at the orphanage on Saturday, and meeting them touched my heart on a different level. The orphanage my team is working at is only for kids that are at risk for being sold into sex trafficking. The orphanage is named after a lady named Nhu. Her grandma sold her for a weekend to a man when she was just 12 years old and then it continued more over the next 6 months. Hearing her story truly impacted me and it grew more of a passion for these kids in my heart. There are many different locations of the orphanage starting in Vietnam, to the Philippians, Thailand, and central and south America.
On Saturday I was able to have the opportunity to help teach an English class to the kids for an hour. They seemed pretty shy when we first got there but slowly opened up through out the class. Seeing their smiles and how eager they are to learn is absolutely incredible. In the class there were about 11 girls, ages 7-17 and their smiles could light up a room.
After the English class we had the opportunity to get down on the girl’s level and just hang out with them. We were able to play games with them, sings songs and eat lunch with them. As we were all lining up for lunch a girl named R (cant say her full name) ran up to me out of nowhere and grabbed my hand. She is only 7 years old and is sooooo full of life and energy. She loved us holding her hands and swinging her in the air. She spoke really good English and was eager to talk. All of the girls are responsible for cleaning up their plates and putting their chairs away. R quickly made sure that she would clean up my plate and put my chair away for me. She is so responsible for a 7-year-old. She is responsible for doing her laundry and keeping up with her chores on a daily basis. The girls at the orphanage are all responsible chores and the guys do some chores and help keep the land looking good (manual labor).
The other days working at the orphanage we did manual labor. We poured concrete 2 days mixing 8 batches each day. We spent another few days just chopping down palm trees by hand to make room for them to put a basketball court in the upcoming weeks. Our ministry host Bud is very resourceful in the fact that we had to cut off the branches to the palm trees so that it could be turned into mulch next week. The manual labor has been hard and something I’m not really used to. Its been really nice to put in hard work and see a physical outcome in our ministry. Seeing the work we are doing and seeing how happy it makes Bud and that we are taking the load off him is very rewarding.
The past 2 weeks being here has been so amazing and seeing all the crazy ways God works has been so cool to see. I can’t wait to see what the next few weeks has in store for my team and I. This next week will be the last week we work at the orphanage and I’m super bummed to leave the orphanage but excited to see what is coming next.
Thank you to everyone who continues to keep up with my blog and is encouraging me. Your support and comments mean a lot to me. I cannot express my gratitude enough to everyone that has been supporting me. THANK YOU 🙂
