Day 4--Overwhelming Sadness

Today the Lundbergs left first thing in the morning. It was so sad to see them go. Tony and Kelly were such great traveling companions and we all felt their absence. The day was full though as Naomi had a couple of things she really wanted me to do. Lily and Eli were tired from the day before so they weren't quite as enthusiastic about working. I spent the morning cleaning the red room. There are four suites of rooms for the different groupings of kids. Each suite has a bathroom, a play area, a prep area where they make bottles and a couple of rooms where the kids sleep. In the food prep area there are large cabinets which all needed to be wiped down and a fridge which needed to be cleaned. I had lots of time to think while I was cleaning. I was already sad starting the day and as I thought of all these sweet children who we had become attached to my heart started breaking thinking of leaving them and going back home while they stay and wait for the families. Thank goodness I know all 35 of these kids will be adopted. My sadness eventually gave way to gratitude as I experienced the same thing I knew as I stood in Lily's orphanage and that is that I was standing on holy ground and in the midst of angels. Those children are not alone. I recalled the words of one of my favorite songs, "Consider The Lilies" where it says, "consider the sweet, tender children who must suffer on this earth, the pains of all of them he carried from the day of his birth." I remember listening to this song after I got to visit Jack in his orphanage a few months before we adopted him.
It was so hard to leave him and as we flew away that song was on my iPod. If there is anything I have learned from four trips to china it is that our savior lives and knows each of us by name, even the very least of us.

Another touching moment came as I was cleaning out a storage room. It was right by the dining area and there were two little girls, about three years old playing together. One of the girls cam out just sobbing. I was busy and kind of ignored her for a minute then I stopped what I was soon g to see what was wrong. She held up her arm and had deep teeth marks in the shape of a mouth on her forearm. I swept up her sweaty body in my arms and comforted her. I shed a few tears myself when I realized at that moment I was the only one in the world who could help her. There was no one else. She was all alone and I almost ignored her because I was busy. How many times does this happen in my life when I am the only one to help and I let the opportunity slip by because I am distracted. That was a lesson learned.

As the minutes flew by I prepared our things to leave I was again hit by a wave of overwhelming sadness. I went and found little Eva and held her for about an hour. She had been laying in her crib and just lit up when she saw me. It was so hard to let go of her and walk out that door.

It didn't take long for the sadness to pass as we had a harrowing ride to the train station which I wrote about in a separate post.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone