Mission trip 2010 - part 4

After the first day, we quickly fell into a routine whereas we would have a daily prayer meeting first thing in the morning, grab breakfast at the hotel. Then around 8:45am we would leave the hotel by bus and travel to the center. We would spend the morning there and leave around lunch time. Then we would go off have lunch, have an hour free time (in China most places have a 2 hour lunch break) and then head back to the center where we would stay untill dinner time. At this point we would go off and have dinner, then return to the hotel. We would have our praise and worship meeting and then we were free till the next morning.

So instead of continuing through each day, I though I would share some particular moments that really stood out for me during the day to day activities of spending time in the center, individual children which I formed a relatively strong bond with and other moments that stand out in my mind. Today I wanted to start by sharing about one boy who left a big mark on me in particular.

Dang Zi Long. 
He was an autistic boy, around 21 years old. This was one person in the center I felt God drawing me to from the very first day. He spent most of his time just walking around the outer perimeter of the center, he didnt like to involve himself with the activities that we were organising and he didnt talk. He would walk in a very defensive manner, his arms crossed and tucked in tightly. For these reasons, the carers at the center didnt really pay much attention to him, he was hard to communicate with and they already have enough problems to take care of. But despite all this, I felt God place this boy on my heart.
I started by just going up to him, shaking his hand, giving him a hug, sitting next to him...all simple gestures. But he preferred to just walk around...so I decided I would walk with him too. So for a number of days, at different times, I would take time away from the activities we were doing with the other children and just walk with Zi Long. We would just walk laps around the center, I would sing to him (i know that sounds like torture =P ), I would talk to him ( although he had no idea what I was saying) and I would pray for him as we walked.
After a couple days, he took to holding my hand as we walked around the courtyard area. So we would continue walking the courtyard hand in hand. Then after several day of simply walking the courtyard together, he stopped walking, and placed his other arm around me. As you can probably imagine...this brought tears to my eyes. So we continued to walk, but now we walked with arms around each other shoulders.

White thread
Another extremely emotional moment for me came on the last day of the trip. It involved a girl named Dang San Ying who was 19 years old. While mentally she was extremely intelligent, she had Polio as a child and was now unable to walk.
On the final day in the welfare center, as we were drawing near to leaving for the final time, I sat down with San Ying. All throughout the trip I had spent time talking to her. She would help me practice my Chinese and I would teach her some English.
As we sat there talking, I was already starting to feel my emotions get the better of me, but I held back the tears. But as we were talking, she called one of the carers over and quietly said something to the carer before she hurried away. As I was unsure what they had said, I dismissed it and continued to think about how much I would miss the beautiful children in the center.
After a few minutes the carer returned, and she was holding a needle and some white thread. San Ying then turned to me and asked me to give her my Jacket, for she had noticed that one of the buttons was falling off. As I gave her my jacket and watched her repair the button, I began to think about how amazing these children are. We had come to pour out God's love on them, but we received so much more than we could ever have given them. They are so under privileged, they have next to nothing, they lack the basic affection we take for granted...but despite all this they still have amazing hearts. They still have amazing outlooks on life. They still have the most beautiful smiles.
As she handed me back the jacket after she had reattached the button properly, she said "对不起，我们没有任何的黑线". Again as you probably guessed...I had tears in my eyes.

I went on the mission trip with the purpose of showing the children how much God loves them. But in the end I was also shown how much God loves me. I have been blessed so abundantly throughout my life. While there have been times I have taken it all for granted, this trip really highlighted how amazing God is, how limitless His love is for us. Truly...our God is an Awesome God!