It’s 6:45 AM and I slowly begin to wake up as my alarm clock begs of me. This morning is the earliest I’ve been up all month, which makes it hard to awake. But, the thought of going to a disabled children’s orphanage within the hour changes everything.
Everyday is different from the days before. Here in our third week in Da Nang, Vietnam we are still meeting new friends, trying new foods, getting lost in the city, and going to new ministry sites.
I rip my comforter off and the freezing air of the hotel room engulfs my body. I hurry around hoping that movement will warm me up. The team makes their way down to the lobby –slowly since it’s 7:30 AM –and we pile into a taxi that drives us through the city to the orphanage.
We arrive around 8:00 AM and meet our new friend who invited us to visit the orphanage. He leads us down a dirt alley to a larger house. We make our way through the gate and directly into the room with sleeping children. The girls all make their way to the baby room, which holds around 8-10 cribs each with a child less than a year old. In the adjacent room, there are more cribs holding the children above the age of one. In total there are 21 children.
As I’m walking around, a girl follows me. She comes up to me, completely fascinated by my watch and bracelets. She ends up taking my watch off, putting it on her own wrist, and runs away for a bit. Soon, this girl, who appears to be about 9 years old, comes back to me with arms raised for me to pick her up. I oblige. She points to everything, so we make our way around the building: me going wherever she points. This continues for a while and then I put her down.
At this point, I walk back into the baby room. I immediately notice a little boy with a head full of hair and the biggest eyes. I play with him in his cradle and then decide to take him out into my arms. I take the little boy to go sit down on a bench to give my arms a little rest. (I haven’t quiet mastered my “mom arms” or “mom strength” yet.) We sit down and then the little boy smiles. Oh. My. Goodness. My heart melted. This little guy has a smile that would melt everyone’s heart.
As I hold him, I pray.
As we walk around, I pray.
As we sit, I pray.
As I look into the faces of all the children, I pray.
Through our time at the orphanage, I pray unceasingly.
We soon leave, unsure if we will return before leaving Da Nang. My heart is heavy, but full. Oh, so full of love.
We return to our hotel around 11:00 AM and have a free hour to shower and rest before heading out to lunch.
Part of the World Race is celebrating holidays, or in this case, birthdays! Mary Lyn’s birthday was on the 9th of September, but she was ill that day. We finally had time to go as a team today to her birthday lunch…a week later.
At 12:00 PM we set off in the pouring rain to a restaurant that has a 3-course lunch special of Western or Vietnamese food! To say we indulged ourselves would be an understatement. The meal was wonderful and, luckily, we dodged the rain walking back to our hotel-home.
I was in charge of team time today, and since we were all tired from the early wake up call, we watched some “Big Bang Theory” and took a nap until we had to leave to teach English.
That’s right, Team Breakthrough is teaching English for our third month in a row.
The rest of the night is full of conversations with Vietnamese students ranging in topics from food to holidays to America to Religion to boys and much, much more.
On our way back to our hotel, we stop to get some Banh My (pronounced bon-me), which is a sandwich of sorts, or Lotteria, which is the Vietnamese version of McDonalds.
Around 8:30 or 9:00 PM the team does feedback in the girls room (5 women in one hotel room…it’s fun). Once again ending prayer, we all disperse and do our own things for the night. After checking Facebook and Instagram for the hundredth time, I decide it’s time to go to bed. I climb back under the warmth of my comforter and drift asleep listening to music. It’s 11:30 PM.
This is month 3 and I didn’t want to come to Vietnam, but I’m so, so thankful and blessed that I did!
