This past weekend, some of my friends and I had the opportunity to take a trip to an orphanage called New Hope. This particular orphanage is home to 50-some orphan children, most of whom are between the ages of six months and three years old.
From the minute we walked into this place, I was absolutely blown away. From the founder's story of how they decided to start an orphanage to how clean, organized, and efficient they are at meeting the children's needs, everything was very impressive. I would imagine that many orphanages can be a place of hopelessness and suffering, but that wasn't the case here. As soon as we walked through the doors, we were met with a blast of life, energy, love, and hope.Before I end up sounding like an inspirational speaker, I'll leave it at that and tell you a little more about our day.
When we first arrived, the husband of the couple that started this organization gave us a short history of how things began and didn't shy away from telling us that he and his wife are Christians and that it was their faith that led them to leave behind their jobs and devote their lives to helping orphans in this country. He explained that something like ten years ago, they visited a different orphanage in a more rural area and couldn't believe their eyes when they found 2-3 kids to a cot, no one there to hold them or change their bedding when they went to the bathroom, and other horrible conditions. As they left, they stopped at the gate to pray, and in tears, decided that they would never come back to an orphanage like that again if it was only going to be for one day and they weren't able to do anything to better the lives of any of the children there.
His wife told him, "I think God wants us to jump into a river, and we're not real sure where it's going or where we'll end up, but I think we need to jump in."
So they returned to the orphanage and asked for a child under six months old with a medical condition that they could treat (his wife is a doctor) and they left with a little baby girl and the intention of treating her medical condition and finding someone to adopt her.
All the while, a beautiful, young, ten year-old Asian girl who speaks fluent English is running around asking when they're going to leave. She found a home alright, and as you probably predicted at the beginning of the story, they ended up adopting her themselves.
But this process began what became The New Hope Foundation, that has several orphanages around East Asia, caring for a total of over 150 young orphans with life-threatening medical conditions from all over East Asia and employing over 270 people. Most orphanages are lucky to have one nanny to every ten children, but New Hope has one nanny to every TWO children. They actually go into other orphanages and find children who meet their criteria and then bring them to the city to care for them.
They also have "special care units" throughout this region where they care for children who likely have less than a week to live. Other orphanages would just let them sit in a room by themselves with no food or care for a week until they die (apparently to try not to prolong their suffering), but NHF takes these children and makes sure they're comfortable and have food to eat if they want it. Sixty percent of those children usually do end up passing away, but that means that FORTY PERCENT that would have otherwise been left for dead are saved and likely later adopted. I could go on and on about this place but I'll let you go to the website yourself. Also check out this website, to see how they have partnered with Steven Curtis Chapman's organization, Show Hope.
The whole time we were being given the tour, I found myself holding back tears. Not because I was sad. Not because we were in a place with almost 60 children without a home. Not even because of some of the horrible medical conditions some of them suffered from. I think I had prepared myself for all of those things. Instead, I found myself being really emotional about how God had used this one couple, and this ONE seemingly "crazy" decision that they made to give everything up and start this from the ground, up, to both save and change hundreds of orphans' lives. What started as a "holy discontent" from the suffering of these children turned into a massive organization that cares for and gives love to hundreds of orphans.
As we played with these kids for the next four hours,
(Sidenote: this might be the only place in the entire world where arm and chest hair is appreciated! One kid, after stroking my arms and trying to pull out chunks of hair pulled out my shirt to, surprise, find even more hair! I proceeded to tell him in his language, "Yes, I am very hairy. Do you have hair?" He then showed me that he didn't have any hair, and pointed to every other kid in the room and told me that they also didn't have body hair.)
I tried to pray for this organization and the kids, but more than anything, the words, "Thank you," kept coming to my lips. Thank You, God, for this organization and for using this ONE couple and their ONE decision to impact so many lives, both in this life and the next.
I want MY life to be used for something significant like this. But what I realized is that nothing significant happens unless significant sacrifices or steps of faith are made. People literally thought this couple was going through a mid-life crisis when they made the decision to do this, and I'm sure even they were scared to give up everything they had and do this, but what seemed like major sacrifices at the time have certainly been rewarded and God has used them in incredible ways.
I'll leave you with part of my journal entry from later that night:
"God, there are so many needs around the world. How can I just sit here and be content to go about my life as usual? I feel like there are so many things I could do with my future but there are also so many people willing to do most of those things. I want to help and serve in ways that You're waiting for someone to step up in! Give me a burning passion for something that's on YOUR heart. I WILL go!
This is what I want my life to be about: Living on the edge with radical faith that leads me to do "crazy" things that no one else would do or care for people that no one else will.
Help me to feed these desires and passions and to live them out. Don't let this die here. There's too much at stake! Show me what your heart burns for that no one else is stepping up to the plate and taking on. Thanks for Your great love and mercy!"
Check back within the next day or two and I will hopefully have another post up with more stories from the orphanage.
-CK
No comments:
Post a Comment