When Words Are Not Enough

This has really been an emotional week for me. Being here again feels as if we never left. I only feel more and more tight with these kids and see more and more need around me. I keep pretending we arent leaving so soon. The real topper for me is the other orphanage we have been visiting. This place is near our New Tribes friends home and is a place they have been trying to establish relationship and connection. The guys wanted to do some work around there but the list is so very long and the time short and the money getting thin. Try to imagine living in this place with no shoes, now picture it during the rainy season when there is at least 7 inches of standing water. Or being a baby here, lying on the tables playing, eating, sleeping and of course with no diaper. They usually run out of money for them to have formula late in the month, they were out when we saw them and were drinking sweetened condensed milk. The "cook" prepares food for 70+ children on two buckets of hot coals. Refrigeration and hot water are out of the question. We tried to mend a few of their clothes, but many were beyond repair. So full of holes and so thin that the stitches would pull through. It broke my heart. What child deserves to live in a dark, wet, rat infested shack with meager food to sustain them? I tried so hard to learn their names. To put a name with their sad face. To KNOW them as they so desperately wanted to be known. Sadly I can remember only a couple and feel as if I failed. These are real children in a real place with real hopes and dreams. Children that should be outside playing on swings and building forts, not living here, not like this. I feel haunted by this place, the crying babies with no arms to run to, the dead hopelessness in the young girls eyes. This is a Christian organization funded by a church in Hong Kong. Let this be a lesson to us all that being a Christian does not mean we are always right. Being a Christian leader does not mean that you always make the right decisions. Sadly when many of those unwise decisions are made in succession, you can impact many and end up with a place like CPCDO. Jesus help us.