We Are Children

After being lost by the equally unhelpful travel issues of our own directional ignorance and the three varying and incorrect directions that we received from locals for nearly an hour – James, Joey and I finally stumbled upon the local orphanage.

Joey and I had been introduced to this Christian orphanage during our last trip to El Salvador, and so seeing the beautiful faces of these children again was an opportunity that none of us were willing to pass up.  As we stepped in, the children’s affection was immediately shown through their hugs and the little hands that escorted us into the manager’s office.  Marie, the orphanage’s manager, invited us to help the children in carrying cement mix and bricks to the current construction project on the property.     

The strength of the children to carry bricks and heavy buckets impressed us all, and we made sure to compliment and affirm the children as we laughed and served side by side.  As lunch came along, we placed bowls of chicken soup at each table and then sat with the youngest of the children and spoon fed them their meals.  I created a game by asking each little girl that sat around me for their name; I would then include the name they gave in a one line Spanish song about how beautiful each child was.  Their bashful smiles and adorable giggles proved that they cared very little at my inability to sing in key.      

Being amongst the children caused my mind to wander to many inspiring places, as God was so obviously in the eyes and hearts of each child that we served.  Perhaps the most consistent thought that I pondered was in the relation between God and mankind.  We were all living as orphans once.  Children destitute and seeking the love and affection of The One who gave us life.  In the same way that a parentless child can lose sight of their identity, those that have not experienced the love of their Father never fully realize how important they are, and the full extent of who it is they were created to be.

These thoughts have rarely been far from my heart, as my sister Emma was adopted from China by my parents when she was only ten months old.  About a year ago, my father and I were at lunch and he began to tell me a side to Emma’s adoption story that I had never heard before.  “When Emma first saw us at the orphanage, while still in the hands of her caregivers, she was terrified of your mother and me because she had never seen anyone with our color of skin and hair.  But that night, we took her to our hotel and loved on her, played with her and hugged and kissed her all over! It didn’t take her long to warm up to us after that.  The next day, when we returned to the orphanage for the last of our paperwork, Emma’s previous caregivers offered to hold her while your mother and I took turns signing the large stacks of paper in front of us.  But as Emma was about to be placed into the arms of the people she had been raised by, she let out a scream I can only describe as petrified! I quickly pulled her back to myself.  I would never let my child experience that fear ever again! And so for the entirety of the paperwork, Heather and I passed Emma back and forth.”

This story confirmed a belief that I had carried for several years about our Father, God: that once we have encountered a love that is real, the thought of living in any other place than the heart of our Father no longer stands as an option.  It is in His affection that we recognize we were not made to be sustained by a system and grown in a world of living from need to need – we were born to be loved and fathered by a God who is abundant in giving and constantly enthralled by His children.