Lovin' on Babies

A few weeks ago, I went with one of our groups to visit the children who live at one of our local orphanges. It was my first time to ever go to an orphanage, and it impacted me. It was nicer and cleaner and bigger than I expected it to be, and the children seemed happy.  Living in a country where so many children are born into homes where they aren't wanted, or are even left to survive on their own, these children are very blessed to live in such a safe place.

It's still so sad, though, to think that these babies don't have mommies or daddies to love on them. The nuns who work at the orphanage take great care of the children, but there's not much time left to love on them. That's why it's so neat when people go with the sole purpose to love on these babies. The babies love it, the visitors love it...it does a heart good.

So going the first time was pretty eye-opening for me.  The next week, another group was here and I needed to go back with them, but had no one to keep the kids this time.  I thought about it, said a quick prayer about it, and decided that we'd give it a go. I didn't know how many questions they might ask.  I didn't know if they were going to behave.  I didn't know if they were going to be rude or ugly.  I just went in with faith that they would handle the situation well. I told them about where we were going, what it was going to be like, and why these children live there. I told them I wanted them to act big and be kind.

They surpassed my every expectation.  What I witnessed that day became a jumbled mess of emotional memories in the making. They embraced the opportunity and almost every time I turned around to spot one of them, I saw them loving on babies. My babies, loving on babies who have no mommas or daddies of their own.  It touched my heart.

It also taught me that sometimes we don't give our kids credit for being able to handle situations that they, really, turn out to embrace and shine in. They want to go back. Because they miss those babies. And we will, by golly. We'll go back lots so that they can share God's love with the very least of these.