Half A World Away

I am sitting here in the outdoor gliding rocker that sits in the front flowerbed.  The sun is shining golden through the trees.  The birds are singing their riotous summer evening song.  The children have friends here and the younger set is playing hide-n-seek in the yard while the older ones play pitch and catch.  I watch as they count, hide, run... occasionally I intervene when things become a bit heated.  It is cool and beautiful and peaceful.

As I sit here my mind wanders.  At this time last week I was just beginning my long journey home from China.  I took a taxi from the hotel to the airport in Changsha.  The driver had the windows down and the early morning breeze was cool.  I sat there silently, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I was leaving, that the SuperKids trip was over.  We were so busy the whole time we were there that there was little time to think about everything we were experiencing.  As I sat there in the taxi the thought niggled in my brain that I would have to think about it all sometime.  I felt tears sting my eyes as I allowed my mind to wander back through the days, to remember incidents, to remember children. 

Chelsea, Pat, Darla, Myself

And then there was the trip.  It messes with your system to cross 12 time zones and the international date line.  It makes it easy to forget that it is not about what we experienced while we were there.  It is about what the children are experiencing right now.  I came home.  They do not have a home.  I am here with my sweet, loving family.  They do not have a family.  That is why we went.  They need to come home to a loving family. Half a world away life goes on just as it does here.  Some of them are running out of time due to health or age.

Gongzhan playing with the twins

There were so many special moments as we traveled from orphanage to orphanage.  The thing that brought the whole team together was our mutual love and concern for the children. I have so many memories of the unexpected little moments.  Like when every Chinese adult in the two rooms helped a little child sing a song complete with motions. Like watching our driver tickle a little boy with Down Syndrome and hearing his precious giggle. Like watching Chelsea blow bubbles for the children who were unable to join the rest of the children because of their special needs. Like seeing the special bond which Gongzhan had with so many of the children. Like looking up to catch Pat or Darla pausing to snuggle a baby or hug a child.  Like the moment when Pat demonstrated how she wanted a girl to hold her arms straight out at the sides and instead the girls went straight to Pat and hugged her, and then the pain of finding out that sweet girl was already too old to be adopted.

Sweet, sweet giggles!

Then there were the moments that broke my heart into a million pieces.  Over and over again.  Like the twin boys who have progressive muscular dystrophy.  Or the four year old who walks on his knees because he has a rare condition involving his knees.  Like the girl whose file will only be prepared if there is a family ready to adopt her because there is no reason to put the time and resources into preparing a file for a child that isn't likely to find a family.  Or the little "blue babies" that have heart conditions and need surgery.  Perhaps the hardest moment of the whole trip was handing a tiny blue baby boy back to his nanny and walking away knowing that help very well may be too little too late. I find myself thinking about him so much!  Sitting in church singing, "Jesus loves me, loves me still, though I'm very weak and ill..."  I feel his weight in my arms again, and the pain of walking away... Please pray that one of the avenues we are looking in to will open to help those sweet babies!

The hard part is trying to reconcile the two worlds.  I know they both exist.  I have seen, heard, smelled, felt, tasted both.  But how can nothing have changed half a world away when the sun is so golden and the breeze is so soft and the birds keep on singing?