As our month rapped up at the orphanage, we all started
getting very close to the kids. During our night time English classes, they
began opening up to us about their lives and why they were in the orphanage.
Some of them were able to just tell there story plain and simply and had just
accepted that it is what it is , or were just so young when they went into the
orphanage that it didn’t seem too painful for them to talk about. Others had a
very hard time talking about it. We heard all kinds or stories this month from
parents selling their kids in markets, kids being found in trash cans, kids
growing up in abuse and seeing their parents killed or put in jail, to kids
whose parents divorced and decided they wanted new families so they dumped
their “old” kids off. Each story was completely heartbreaking, which made
leaving even harder. It was like telling “hey we love you and want to know you”
and then abandoning them. But, life right now is just limited time in each
country, and we just try to love them as much as we can let God do the rest.
last night that we were there we had a little worship service and then stayed
late just trying to spend time with each of the kids. I tried to hug all of
them as much as possible before we left. One girl I had gotten close to over
the month, I kept trying to hug her and she would just kind slightly lean into
my hug and smile but that was about it. Finally, right before we walked out the
gate, I tried to hug her again and she did the same thing so I looked at her
and said, “That’s not a hug, I want a real hug from you.” So she kinda put one
arm around me, and all of a sudden it hit me that I don’t even think she knows
how to receive love, and I just felt like God was telling me to speak life into
her. I don’t know everything I said, but I just held onto her and began telling
her that I loved her and God loved her, and that she was a smart beautiful
girl, and she is very smart, and one day she is going to make a great lawyer,
and she will have an amazing husband one day and have a family of her own., etc.
When I finally let go of her and looked at her and she was crying. This was by
far the most emotion I had seen from this girl. She is normally smiling, but I
think that is more of a default than the way she is actually feeling. I hated
the she was crying, but I feel like I was actually able to leave her with
something good. And I believe that everything I said to her that night was
truth that God had given me for her, and I think she knew that too, and that
I’ve learned can be a very powerful, life-changing thing.
