Sozo is a coffee shop we helped serve while we stayed in Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam. On our first day out doing Min. in Vietnam, it just so happend to be The Mid-Autumn Festival aka The Half-Moon Festival aka Children’s Day. Saturday, September 13, our team & team Pi joined in w/Sozo to help celebrate this holiday at a orphanage just outside the city. We decided to go love on the children that do not have any family or parents to celebrate this special holiday with them.
When we arrived, the children performed a play that tells the story of the what The Mid-Autumn Festival is all about. The little girl you see below, is dressed up as the moon. They acted out the play two times, but it was hard to understand; it was hard to understand, not only b/c it was in a different language, but the room was filled w/~100 children & adults, w/one very loud boom-box.
On this day, many families plan their activities around their children. These children do not have families, so on a day like this, many people will go visit the orphanages & spend time w/the kids. The picture below shows you how crowded the room was.
The children were given treats, masks, & lanterns as presents. Our two teams helped put on performances & do whatever was needed for the children to have a very happy day. This meant a lot of candy!
Even though it took a good 45 minutes to reach this orphanage, it was well worth the travel. The kids at I met were of all different ages, some sadly were suffering from extreme to mind mental problems; That was why they were there–there families did not want them.
They piled EVERY child into one huge room & we stayed there for the day entertaining as best we could. The kids also were given a moon-cake. This special treat has a hard-boiled egg in it & looks a lot like a “Moon-Pie” back home in the states.
This little girl below stayed in her chair for most of the time we were there. All in all, our small bus load of people were not the only ones helping the kids there, some of the nationals I met would try to come visit the orphanage as often as they could. That was good to hear–these children have lots of visiters.
These boys had a lot of energy! We played the game where you pick up the person attached to you by bending over. You switch back & forth whenever the leader tells you. They had a competition w/this game–the winners were whoever could do this the fastest & not drop there partner. This game was a lot of fun to watch!
As you can Shanda had a ton of fun! The boys also did a break-dance session for us! They are very talented.
Sozo tries to do an out-reach to an orphanage once a month, so we were glad we got to go help. If you want to know more about this coffee-shop & what they are doing in their community, you can check it out by going to there website: http://sozocentre.com/
