Chenzhou Orphanage - Day 5 (Saturday)

Today, because of the inspection at the orphanage, we didn’t go until 10:30. That being said, we all had some extra time to sleep in, which was good. I felt like I needed it, but towards the middle of the day I started to hit a wall… I guess too much sleep? I’m not quite sure.

Anyways, we went to the orphanage and we got all the kids downstairs to start some crafts and such. Annie, Shannon, and Fawn all went to McDonalds right away to order the food and bring it back. We first brought out the scratch off lantern ornament. They loved to do this last year, and it went pretty much the same this year. Macy, once again, articulated every little scratch with her little pen.

That went by pretty fast, though, so we grabbed some heart shaped paper and they colored on them and put some foam stickers on them as well. All the kids loved making them and holding them up for us to take pictures. They were so proud of their work!

After that we had them put glitter glue on some stars. Will was really particular on his star, and drew a girl on each of his. He was so proud of them.

After that we just colored and played around with different kids. We had a lot of fun this morning, and we noticed that the kids are a lot of calmer and more behaved.

 Will's stars

 Coffee filter craft=butterflies:)

At least, until we had to go upstairs to the 5^th floor.

Makenna, Elyssa, and I had some trouble getting the kids up to the fifth floor. They decided they didn’t want to get into the elevator, and once they did they pushed every single button that they possibly could. And once we got to the fifth floor, it took us forever to get them OUT of the elevator. Gah, it was so frustrating. Many of the kids were very mad at us… but it’s not like they could spend the day in there.

When we finally made it to the upstairs room, I sat down on the bench with a sweet little girl named Ava. You can tell she’s the orphanage favorite. She had a whole bunch of stickers and spent her time sticking them on my face, and she thought she was SO funny. It made me laugh.

Anyways, by around 12 the kids were all fussy and hungry, so they started feeding them their food. It was interesting to see… they had a nice rice, beef, and onion dish, which actually looked good. In fact, Will was eating some by us and held his chopsticks out with some meat on it, like he was offering it. At first we all said, “oh no no thank you!” but he kept doing it so Charlie and I accepted a piece to make him happy. He thought it was super funny. ;)

When Shannon and all came back from McDonald's, we gave the kids their meals, on top of the food they were already eating. So they had lots of food to eat! They seemed to really like it. We brought them little boxes of milk (like juice boxes) and they absolutely LOVED them. They all sucked them down quickly.

After the morning, Charlie and I went to the market to get some waters and chocolate for the nannies. We noticed that the store had about five levels, so we went exploring through them all. It was lots of fun to see the different things over there. Everyone followed us around in the stores… We were talking today (all of us) about how we felt like celebrities, and how this is definitely not a life we’d want to live. Everyone just stares and follows us. It’s crazy.

When we went back to the orphanage in the afternoon and went to the babies. None of them were in the room when we got there, so we went to grab “our” babies. :)

I found Cassie lying down crying, so I picked her up and rocked her. She’s warming up to me more, and doesn’t mind me holding her. Yesterday she had an ear infection… and I’m sure she still does, so she’s been crabby. I can only imagine how hard that is for her little body to fight with her heart problem. On top of that, she has a cough :(.

Anyways, I tried everything to calm her down… rocking, bouncing. I finally sat down and rocked her and sang Jesus Loves Me… the only thing that got her to be quiet. How fitting. So we sat there for awhile and she finally fell asleep. It was nice to see her calm down and sleep. She had an oozing sore on her head, I would wipe it and a few minutes later green oozy stuff came out. So we put medicine on it, and I hope it’ll stop soon.

 A team member brought a bunch of adorable bibs for the babies!

 This sweet heart baby needs surgery

 Charlie brought some adorable onesies for the babies.  We enjoyed dressing them up!

 She needs heart surgery SO badly :(

 Elyssa with John

That pretty much finished out my day. At the end we asked one of the nannies (She said her English name is Liz) about the foster children. She said they are all healthy kids there, which is interesting. She also told us she doesn’t live at the orphanage, but has an apartment close to the orphanage. I thought that was interesting to know. She has a 19 year old son, and we were all so shocked, because she looks so young! She told us she was 44, but definitely doesn’t look that old. But I’d love to sit down and talk with all the nannies to find out about their lives. It would be so cool to hear.

The nannies

Anyways, today was short because we had a short time at the orphanage. Tomorrow we go to church with the head nanny, Joy. So pray for open opportunities there. It should be a cool experience. 

More pictures from yesterday:

Did I mention the orphanage is HOT!

 Chun Chun and me