Part 1: Orphanage Visit

Today was a crazy busy day so I am splitting the day's events into two posts :)

We were up bright and early this morning and after breakfast we packed up our suitcases and the van, and headed to the Xuzhou City orphanage (the plan was to head straight to the airport from the orphanage to catch our flight to Guangzhou which is our last stop before heading home).

Xuzhou City is located in Jiangsu province, and since the initiation of economic reforms in 1990 Jiangsu has been a hot spot for economic development and now has the highest GDP per capita of all Chinese provinces. Jiangsu is home to many of the world’s leading exporters of electronic equipment, chemicals and textiles, and has also been China's largest recipient of foreign direct investment since 2006. Jiangsu has the highest population density of all the provinces in China (though the provincial-level municipalities of Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin have a higher density).

The Xuzhou orphanage is a new facility and was extremely nice as far as orphanages go. The director and nannies all seemed very nice and compassionate, and the children were well cared for. But...it is still an orphanage. It was still sad, and I still cried. The little ones in these photos still do not know the love of a family, or what it means to be a son or daughter. I wanted to scoop up and take every one of those precious little children home with me.  It was a humbling and overwhelming experience and one I will not soon forget.

reception room for visitors

The first room we visited was the music room where the older children were having a special program in celebration of Chinese New Year (which I did not get any pictures of). Our guide told us that local police officers often come to the orphanage on special holidays to celebrate with and visit the children.

Next we visited the youngest baby room and I came undone. The teeny tiny babies in incubators and row upon row of cribs was more than I could take. It was heartbreaking and I broke down and cried.

There were three tiny babies like this one in incubators in this room (you can see the incubators and oxygen tanks along the back wall in the next photo).

The next two rooms we visited were for older babies and young toddlers and each had about 30 cribs (I cried some more).

In the younger of the two rooms it was feeding time and several nannies were alternating feeding and holding about ten babies.

The last few rooms were for older children including a school room and play room.

This little boy was so sweet and was hugging everyone in our group.

Before we left the orphanage we were treated to homemade dumplings served and made by the visiting police officers! They were delicious and unlike a restaurant there were no forks so we had to do our best with chopsticks (we managed, but it wasn't pretty).

We also got a quick picture with the orphanage director. She is the one who took Justin straight to the hospital upon his arrival at the orphanage, and is also the one who contacted and escorted him to the care of Love Without Boundaries.

What an emotionally draining morning! And all before lunch! Little did we know that we were still in for a long, stressful, and trying day of travel.

Learn to do good.
Seek justice.
Help the oppressed.
Defend the cause of orphans.

~Isaiah 1:17