China: Day 3
I don’t think I’m going to do a blog post for every single day. That would probably be a little crazy. But I thought I’d share a couple of hightlights from yesterday (Sunday) and a bit more about today.
I’ve been pretty impacted by this trip already. I knew that seeing kids who have been abandoned by their families would affect me at some level. And it has. Yesterday, I went out with the director of our China operations to a boys home and a girls home to do a little singing and stories. These are probably our more high functioning kids, but they all have forms of Cerebral Palsy or other type of physical and mental disabilities. I don’t think I expected them to be downright sad, but I did not expect them to be so happy. More the fool me.
These are kids whose families said, “I can’t afford to have you” or “You will not be able to be a good son/daughter” so they tossed them away. I’m sure many of the families had regrets doing so, but the fact remains that these children were destined to live and die unloved. But some people I work with came along and said, “No, your life has value and we’re going to show you love.” It brought tears to my eyes to see them so happy, singing and listening to the stories.
Today, I went around to most of the ICC projects (as our facilities are called) in Changsha. I started off with the Lighthouse where we do physical, speech and conductive therapies (among others). I walked around and settled down with these 2-4 year olds who have Cerebral Palsy and their therapist encourages them to move their muscles. It’s amazing how this early work means these kids have a chance at a real life down the road. I then sat holding this blind boy’s hand for the longest time.
I was then toured around many of the other facilities like our Community Outreach Program and the Vocational Training Centre. You can see the photos of the kids making simple jewelry and cards at the VTC. COP is where ICC reaches right out into the community to provide supports and services to families with disabled kids so that abandonment isn’t seen as the only solution.
I ended up at the local children’s welfare centre where ICC has a portion of the building. This is where many of our most disabled kids are. We have this little boy who’s 12 years old. He doesn’t look like he’s a day over four. I found out that he has spina bifida and has been close to death so many times. He’s a little fighter and easily a favourite among all the workers.
I’ll see more next week in Hengyang and Sanmenxia. But I now go into several days of meetings with a real sense of who I’m doing my work for in Vancouver.
