Children Need Love

We pull up to the orphanage gates around 6:15 pm every Thursday.  A handful of children are there at the gate, waiting.   They cheer and run to the bike, crowding close, reaching for us.  As we ride up the hill, the group runs with us.  Their excited yells alert the others, who hurry from their rooms with shouts and squeals.  The same children who once eyed us warily and shied away from our touches now greet us with embraces.

I read a great quote on facebook today: "Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it."  Unconditional love is something that many of these children know little about.  Enoch and I want to be people that they can trust, look up to and depend on.  We want the children to know we will love them no matter what and be there for them always.  I have no doubt that we will fail at times, but to the best of our abilities, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are determined to show these children love.  They may not understand how much we care for them yet, but they are opening up to us slowly, letting down their guards.  We can only pray that over time they will come to understand just how much value they have in our eyes.

Birthday parties are not as common in Vietnam as in America.  Some of the reasons are cultural; some are practical.  Since children in the Dai Loc orphanage came from tough economic situations, their birthdays weren't celebrated.  Most of the children in Dai Loc have never had a birthday party or received a birthday gift.  We want to change that.  Three boys had birthdays in May.  On each of the special days, Enoch and I gathered everyone around to sing "Happy Birthday" as we presented a small cake and a gift to the birthday boy...nothing big, just a way of saying that we celebrate the day they came into the world--we celebrate their lives.

One way we try to express love to the children is by meeting their physical needs.  We are around them more consistently now, and we can see needs that we wouldn't have been aware of otherwise.  Spending the night at the orphanage means showering at the orphanage...and in the process we learned something--the children were in desperate need of towels!  Yesterday, we rode from Da Nang to Dai Loc carrying bags full of new brightly-colored bath towels.

After dropping off towels on our most recent visit, Enoch and I took a trip to the local market in Dai Loc--this time in search of food.  Twelve of the orphanage children are studying all hours for important exams.  The caregivers asked if we could help with a snack to give them an extra boost.  The request?  Milk and eggs for each testing child.  But not just any eggs, fertilized duck eggs.  So every week we go to the market and, using pictures, gestures, and our best attempts at Vietnamese, we shop for eggs with baby ducks inside.

June 1st was International Children's Day, and we wanted to bless the children in our programs with a big celebration.  Orphan Voice rented a large convention center to host a party for children from six orphanages.  Around 275 children, caregivers, staff and volunteers participated in the event.  The kids enjoyed three carnival-type rides, relay races, soccer, badminton, volleyball, face painting, necklace making, coloring, figurine painting, snacks, and a meal. The event involved a lot of preparation and scurrying around--by the end of the day, our crew was exhausted but satisfied.  We had done our best to show love, and we were rewarded with front row seats as 200+ smiling, chattering, giggling, skipping, bounding little ones played the day away.