Chenzhou - Day 3 - Photos

I'll write about our day when I get back to the hotel tonight, but for now here are some photos from the morning.  Some interesting happenings to come this evening....the assistant director of the orphanage told his friends about our group and they said they were very moved by what we are doing. They asked to take us to dinner tonight... so we were asking Fawn (our guide) questions about who they are, and she said they're leaders of the "Youth Communist something"... they're there to help educate children about the world.  Not really sure what that means, but we are excited for the opportunity.  Since we're 13 hours ahead of you all in America, we'll be at dinner about 5 or 6 AM your time (Thursday), but we'd love it if you would pray that we make the most of this meeting.  

And here's my after dinner update of Chenzhou Day 3 (Thursday): 

No intruders last night, and we slept like a baby!

Our room is still pretty hot, though. I mean, I’m used to sleeping with my fan on all the time… even in the winter! So this is pretty rough. But that’s okay.

Did I tell you all that our fridge in the room doesn’t work? For some reason it says its on, the light is on, but it won’t cool anything. :(

 Also, our bathtub is gross. Very scummy…  I mean, mom thinks I let my bathroom get bad sometimes, she should see this! Luckily we were given a bath mat, so I’ve been making sure not to step off of that in the shower. 

To add to our bad luck… Elyssa’s hair straightener doesn’t work anymore. It must’ve gotten fried even though its able to plug into the wall without a converter. So no more nice hair from now on (as if it was looking good before, HA!). 

First World problems in a Third World country...don't feel sorry for me:). 

Anyways, today was fun. Yesterday we noticed that there are some babies that stay in the older kid’s room upstairs in the bumbo seats, but no one is in there watching them. :( So we decided that we would send 2 people up there to be with them for about an hour and then switch off.

I spent the first hour with the babies singing them lullabies and praying for them. I held one precious baby girl for awhile. While the older kids were up there, one of them ran and fell into her and she started crying. She’s so frail and TINY. Like, skin hanging off her body, tiny. Like, she should be in the hospital, tiny. I need to ask them what’s wrong with her and why she isn’t in the hospital. Molly and I both agreed that she needs medical attention, or an IV or something to fatten her up. She and another little baby are in the same boat. They both are so frail… They shouldn’t be in the room with the older kids. I think they split them up by age… and once they’re  a year they go into the room with the older kids, but they just can’t do that. They need to split them up by their development and skills. I’m hoping to gently tell them that when I get the chance.



Anyways, I spent part of my time doing that, and the other part playing with John. He is just the sweetest baby boy! So loving and always laughing.  I stood him up and he walked around a bit holding my hands, but he didn’t even seem to need them. I think he could easily walk without me holding him.

After about an hour Molly and I went downstairs to join the others. It looked like they had been making balloon animals and hats!

Fawn called me over because the older girl who is in a wheel chair (Chun Chun) wanted to talk to me. We met her last year and she has such a sweet heart and always willing to lend a hand. She said that she remembered me and gave me a beautiful necklace that she said she made. It looks like a blue water droplet. She’s so sweet!

 I went and found my sweet Macy and played with her. She saw Annie running around with Leah on her back, and pointed to them. SO, guess what I did in the 100+ degree weather? Yep, that’s right. I ran around in the sun with Macy on my back. And boy did she love it! After awhile we sat down on the ground and drew with chalk. She, again, copied a few of the things I drew. She loved learning new things to draw. I wish I was a better artist so I could teach her more! But she seemed content with what I had :).

After awhile the face paint came out and all the kids crowded around those who had the paint. Macy didn’t want to get hers painted, though. Chun Chun called me aside, though, and started showing me how to make something. I wasn’t sure what. She had a whole craft bag in her lap, but she would show me how and then have me do it. Eventually it turned out to be a pretty red flower made from wire and panty-hose material (picture below). She asked Fawn if we had the same material in America… we for the most part did, but she was so sweet and told me substitutes for them, in case I wanted to make it at home.

 Beautiful Chun Chun and her sweet gift.

After awhile Fawn left and I sat with Chun Chun to see her finish. An old man came over and said, “I speak a little bit of English.” So he sat and asked me questions like where I was from and stuff. Then he said, “Your eyes are so beautiful, just so blue like the sea!” It was sweet, but my eyes are hazel ;)

Chun Chun finished and I took her inside to be with the little kids.

The others were pulling out paper, glue, and cottons balls to do a simple craft like we did last year. They absolutely love this craft, and it’s so simple! It got pretty messy though, but we brought a tablecloth. :)

I spent some time talking to Chun Chun with Molly and Fawn. We told her that because she’s so creative she needs to go to art school. She said that there aren’t any around. When I asked her if she ever went to school, she said never. How sad. She’s 19 and has never been. It breaks my heart. She also told us that she has a sister who lives in America who was adopted. I can’t even imagine how that must feel. And that they actually separated them. But she said that they’re hoping to come to America to visit her, and she was SO excited.

By that time it was time for the kids to go up to eat lunch, so a few of us stayed behind to clean up while the children went upstairs. We have the girl scout saying, “Leave it cleaner than you found it!” And we sure did.

Back upstairs we went and saw the kids for a few minutes. Macy found me and we played for a bit. I stood her up on her legs and she was able to stay, so we danced by moving our arms and hips a bit. She LOVED that and giggled like crazy. She also loves to be swung upside down and tickled.

We left the orphanage and had lunch and then I came back and went through pictures from the day. We also met to pray because Mr. Ren’s (assistant director) friends from the Communist Party wanted to meet with us because they were interested in what we do and why. An interesting opportunity!

Back at the orphanage we went straight up to the babies. I went and found a sweet baby girl with down syndrome to play with. She was very strong and could roll over and hold her head up, which is great. One of the pervasive issues in the orphanage is lack of motor skills from lying in cribs and seats all day. 

Molly brought in our sweet frail baby, the littler one we named Sarah. She suggested I go get the other one, we named her Cassie, to protect and to work with them. So I went to the other room and got sweet Cassie.

She was kind of a whiny baby today. She couldn’t seem to get comfortable. And was very particular about how she wanted to be held. She did NOT want to be put down. Molly and I tried to get them to use their hands and move around. By the end Sarah was moving from side to side on her back, which was great. Cassie didn’t want to do too much. She eventually held her head up on her own, which was great. We walked around for a bit and she started to grab my necklaces and shook them, which was a great improvement. A nanny came in and took her to feed her. We asked about the two girls and why there were so skinny. Apparently they are heart babies, with very severe heart problems. That’s what makes them so skinny and frail. But the nannies say they can’t have heart surgery until they’re older.  Not sure if this is true, or they just don't have the money to have the procedures. Miss Cassie ate TWO bottles, which is great to see that she IS eating… it just doesn’t seem to be doing anything.

Afterwards I took her and walked around the room bouncing her. That’s the only thing that would make her happy. She calmed down and just sat there in my arms forever. I had a moment when I just broke down crying, knowing that she is stuck in this orphanage, in a place not able to give her the medical care that she needs. She doesn’t deserve this. It’s just so sad. I just wish I could take them all out of the orphanage and give them families.

We left a few minutes early today because we wanted to shower and look kinda nice before we met the communist party people. I smelled SO bad because Cassie smelled like puke, and she was on my chest. It took all I had in me not to throw up whenever I smelled her, but she’s just too sweet, it didn’t even matter.

Anyways, we quickly showered and met down in the lobby and they drove us to the restaurant. They drove us for a good 10 minutes and showed us a whole new part of the city. The nicer part of the city, that is. We were looking out and suddenly everything was nice and there were huge buildings and cool parks. It was interesting to see that side.

When we arrived it ended up being a hotel… but we went back to the restaurant part and it was empty. So we got our own private room and it had the biggest table and biggest lazy susan I’ve seen. The dinner was interesting… they were fascinated by the fact that we were American. They took their phones out and took so many pictures of us. It’s really hard to sum up the meal… because it just seemed kind of chaotic. But basically… they came to see the Americans, and didn’t ask us any questions. Haha. It was interesting. They were all in love with Annie. They said she was so crazy and thought she was very interesting. They even gave her a toast! That’s another thing. They brought out wine for all of us. Don’t worry mom and dad, I didn’t drink any of it ;). But they must’ve toasted us about 3 or 4 times… and by the 2^nd one Elyssa and I started getting worried because they were driving us home… haha. That’s when we started praying. I was also told that I looked like Miranda Cosgrove from iCarly… which is kind of funny because I get that a lot at home.

We arrived to our hotel safely, which was a blessing. Karla and I were holding onto Elyssa who was sitting in the middle, afraid that she would fly through the window if we stopped abruptly. But we were so happy when we got there.

Anyways, I’m tired, it’s late, so I’m gonna call it a night.