Compelled.

Yesterday I was compelled to take every child I saw home. Much of my day was spent at the Mother Theresa Orphanage in town. It is one of two traditional orphanages left in Rwanda. After the genocide there was a large number of children without parents. Rwanda because of the genocide has changed the way they take care of their orphaned children. They no longer place children in orphanages, but place them in homes of the elderly, widows, or have people within the community check in on children who are old enough to run their households. So yesterday, I went to the orphanage. When I arrived I went directly to the infant section. There was about 20-30 children in the room. It was their feeing and changing time, so Lauren (another teacher at KICS) and I tried our best to help out. It was my first time using a cloth diaper, which was quite a sight. The Rwandan women giggled and somewhat willingly helped me. After all of the children were fed and changed, which is never ending, we just sat and held whatever babies we wanted to pick up and just played with them. They loved to be held. They loved to tickled. They just simply loved our attention and clung to us. What surprised me was that they hardly ever cried. Also, they knew that if they cried they would not be picked up. I also noticed how alert they were. Going to the orphanage was not hard for me at all. Seeing all of the babies was not hard either. I think the hardest part was the smell and it seemed like every baby I picked up was wet and needed to be changed. It made me think about how often they have to sit in their dirty diapers with minimal attention. After being with the babies, I went over to the room that had babies between 1-2 years old. The room was full of yelling, crying, and giggling until I walked into the room. I am not sure how often they see white people because when I walked in they all went silent and one child actually started crying. Eventually I went over and knelt down to a group of them and they started giving me "five" and hitting my hand. Before too long about six children were around me and started pushing one another, so I order to keep them from fighting I just started walking around the room. They began to follow and chase me. It became a game. Before the end of my time there, I went over and picked up this one child who laid on the floor the entire time I was there. I held him for about ten minutes and the hardest part for me was once I put him down he started wailing. It broke my heart because I didn't want him to hurt. As I picked up another child he came over and just stood their clinging to my leg and resting his head on me. I am not sure I have ever experienced the realm of emotions I did yesterday. All of those children are precious, specifically in God's sigh,t and it breaks my heart that they do not have parents to continually reflect that to them.