So it is day two at Home of Hope. So far I got a tour of the campus and strolled the neighborhood a bit. Met all of the younger children here, the babies too! They all are so cute and in need of a lot of attention! …they always crave attention! I don’t know how these house mothers do it! Bathing them, changing them, feeding them, finding something for them to do, a never ending cycle. I wonder how they see the children. Are the children just kids they babysit or just like their own kin? Are they “empty love tanks” or just running on “half tank”? Do the young kids see the house mothers as their own mother or do they just call them “mama”? Do these young kids differ from the older children in terms of how they view their life? I wonder how they feel.

Lily

A day filled with god (and lots of sleep)!

I never knew how tiring it would be to look after 10-15 kids; kids that never had any parents so they seek attention whenever and wherever they can get it. Lily and I had the privilege to watch after the children this morning since the house-mothers were busy with other chores around the orphanage. Wow, after just a few hours…Lily and I were asking ourselves, “How would we handle this for a lifetime?!” In all honesty, it was a huge blessing. We taught them some American games. We hung out and gave these children some attention that they really needed. I saw 3 cases of staph skin infection/abscess, with one needing I&D (i.e., incision and drainage)…which was very cool. Saw another case of most likely impetigo and one case of verruca vulgaris (aka, wart). Luckily we brought some medical supplies necessary to help! Today, Lily and I also took a little walk to the market…it was nice getting some alone time with her. I took 2 separate naps, lasting nearly 2-3 hours each!!! We ended the night with movie-night! I brought my projector and we had a blast watching ‘Stewart Little’ on their cafeteria white wall…all the kids loved it!

I really hope and pray God continues to open doors. My biggest prayer is for God to open the heart of Nathan Bell, the orphanage director…so we can have some good conversation.

Looking up with great anticipation,
Dan

We finally arrived in ZhenZhou, about 1.5 hours away from our final destination (Home of Hope orphanage in GongYi)!!! When we got to ZhenZhou airport, Lily and I were both completely lost. All the taxi drivers outside the airport were snickering at us…two foreigners with 3 large suitcases wandering aimlessly. None of the people (e.g., taxi drivers, policemen, airport staff) knew of the hotel we were supposed to stay at overnight, before taking off to GongYi tomorrow morning. Long story short, Lily and I got into a taxi (in faith), and just hoped and prayed they would bring us to a safe and clean hotel. Roughly 30 minutes later (it was such a long taxi ride and all the worst case scenarios went through my mind), we arrived at a Holiday Inn Express long ways away from where we were supposed to stay!!! We decided to stay here for the night, even though it would cut into our monthly budget…and have another adventure tomorrow, trying to find the orphanage in really really really rural China. Praying for another good taxi driver tomorrow.

What an exhausting day. Lily is already passed out behind me…time for me to join her!

Looking up with great anticipation,
Brother Dan

By the way, thank you for ALLLLLLL our supporters. Your financial and spiritual support means everything to us!