“I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength.”
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Mother Teresa
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Mother Teresa is one of my heroes. I look up to her in so
many ways. I found this quote today on my break and I just felt like it fit so
perfectly how I’m feeling right now.
This morning Amy and I were curious to see if the heart
babies would be back and what information they would have on them, and if
they’d be willing to share.
We went up to the orphanage and saw that baby Charlotte was
getting ready to be put on an IV. The nanny in the room, who is Nathan’s nanny,
saw me and came over to give me a big hug. She always has a smile on her face,
and is always so cheery. Seeing Charlotte there, I quickly went to find Sarah
and see if she was there. She was in the older kids’ bed room hooked up to an
IV. Sweet as ever, just sitting there. I just love that little angel so much.
I walked back to the baby room to see who else was in there,
and Nathan’s nanny had just finished changing him when she picked him up and
handed him to me. So I brought him down to the playroom. When I got there Steve
was holding papers, and he told us they were evaluations on the heart babies
from last night. He read the parts that he knew how to translate (medical terms
are so hard to translate between Chinese and English). He said that Charlotte’s
heart condition is very severe, and the surgery is very complicated. We kind of
thought that, because she’s blue. She has a few different things that she may
need multiple surgeries. Sarah’s isn’t so severe. He told us that the orphanage
said we could take pictures if we wanted and then send them to the doctors in Beijing. So you
better believe we jumped on that. So exciting.
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| Nathan working on those core muscles |
I played with Nathan for a bit. We’ve been working on
getting him to sit up, but he just doesn’t have the strength. He’s just little.
But we propped him up so he would sit up. He’d start to fall forward a little
bit, but we hovered over him and prop him up.
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| Blossom - is she not adorable? |
Shannon bought a cake for baby Blossom because her birthday
is in a few days. So we all gathered around for the party. It was Nathan,
Minnie, and Angelina’s first birthday party that they had ever been to. They
didn’t last for long. All three of them fell asleep half way through. Such
party animals.
I gave Nathan to Elyssa to hold because the nannies handed
me cake to feed to the babies. I fed Ellie for a little bit, but she wasn’t
very hungry for cake, so I gave Sarah (teammate) my piece of cake. By this time
we decided it was time to go play with the older kids. So everyone took babies
back to their cribs and I stayed back and picked up toys and cameras.
By the time I had picked up everything and walked into the
big kid room, most of the kids had already been brought outside, so I stayed
with Joy who was helping Carrie (Caroline) walk to the elevator. We rode down
and when I got off one of the nannies had a big pot of mush that she was
bringing up to the babies. So I held the door open for her (those elevators
always close so quickly here) and the nanny said thank you. I tried to say
“you’re welcome”, but must have failed miserably. Because Joy looked at me and
corrected me saying, “yea xie xie”, and I said it and she laughed a little bit.
She corrected me once again, and then I repeated it and she clapped and gave me
a big hug. :) Just got a little Mandarin lesson from Joy today. Love her.
When we got outside there wasn’t much going on. Yesterday
Kathryn and I bought Sydney a dress because she’s always dressed in boys
clothes. And she literally looks like a boy. So we gave her the dress, which
was fun. Throughout the end of the day she put her shorts back on underneath it
because she likes that. But now she looks like a girl, haha.
Since there wasn’t much going on, Amy and I went back up
again to get some tattoos to give the kids. And then we had to cut them all up,
which took quite a bit of time.
We took them outside and discretely started showing the kids
one by one the tattoos, but then all the kids seemed to find out and they all
went crazy. Haha. They loved them, though. Dora was working her way to getting
herself some tattoo sleeves. Taylor was getting them all over the place. Legs,
arms, face, you name it.  |
| Our guide, Steve |
Every day that we’re outside this older lady with some
mental disability will come out and stand next to Steve (our guide) and sing to him. The
first day we could tell he felt a little awkward, but now he’s so sweet and
will sit with her and listen and then sing back to her sometimes. Steve’s
awesome.
We brought the kids back upstairs eventually and got them
settled in and had to leave.
A few of us went to the market before lunch to get drinks
and what not. We were checking out and all these Chinese people kept trying to
cut us in line. They’re so rude and unaware of their space sometimes. It was
interesting. Then Danielle wanted to go and look at the shoe stores downstairs,
so we walked around for a bit. A lady who spoke very good English came up and
started helping us. I told her that her English was very good and she just
giggled and said thank you. I’ve noticed that more people than I expected speak
English here. KFC has quite a few workers whose English is fairly good. I’ve been
impressed.
We decided not to go back to the orphanage in the afternoon
because we were going shopping for shoes, underwear and other things for the
kids then. Though some of us didn’t go with because we didn’t want to get in
the way or overcrowd everyone.
They came back with a lot of clothes for the kids, but
didn’t find the shoes they were looking for, for the price that we wanted. So,
we’re hoping to find another store for those.
We went to KFC for dinner tonight. We got lots of stares and
people asking for pictures. The usual. We also go ice cream which was
wonderful.
I haven’t been feeling 100% today. Little sick. Woke up with
a sore throat, and another sore in my mouth which makes it hard to eat
anything. I also started reacting to something (I don’t know what… because it
came out of the blue) and my eye started puffing up. But that’s nothing
benadryl can’t fix. I’ve been exhausted all day. So I’m not sure what’s up. But
I’d appreciate prayers. Tomorrow is the last day, so I’m hoping to feel better for
that.
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