Day 2

As I mentioned yesterday, I cannot access Facebook while in China and I cannot respond to posts.  However, I do get the emails when you post on my wall, so please keep posting.  It makes me feel connected to all my friends and family. 

The second night was much better with the extra blankets.  We played some Scrabble, after our take out dinner.  We will not have anyone to take us out to eat so we can order in or buy groceries to make dinner in our room or walk somewhere on our own and try to order by pointing at the menu.   We did some reading until we finished our books and went to bed.  This morning, we had breakfast and then went straight out to play with the kids.  The sun is out today and a bit warmer but the power is out and we have no water, fortunately we do have a generator for electricity.  We made a Wal-Mart run just in case we need to make our dinner any night- PB&J it will be with bananas, kiwi and chips (both cucumber and blueberry flavored).

We spent a long time at the first house, as I did not want to put Melody down, I love her!  I worry about her and hope that she gets adopted.  While I was holding her at one point Hannah said, “Oh she is cold.  Her arms are up in her sweater sleeve”.  She had not realized that all of her extremities end at either the knee or elbow.  I fought hard to hold back the tears - but the tears won. 

I wondered how I could go from feeling so refilled on awakening (just a couple days in a serene environment with no phone, no TV is so refreshing) to feeling so empty that there is not more I can do help all these children.  By all means, this is a place that has an excellent child to adult caregiver ratio and still some of the kids seemed starved for attention.  Putting in an eight-hour shift for a nanny is just so different than a parent taking care of a child for eight hours.

There is a couple from Oregon here that has lived and helped at Shepherd’s Field for about 2 years.  They first came here for a visit a couple months after I was first here with Vanessa.  We exchanged stories of what brought us here.  They had two sons, one 19 and the other 21 who left one day to go fishing with their grandfather and none of them came home.  So they came here to fill the holes in their hearts that losing two children caused and I came for two children that have filled my heart. 

Being here makes a person realize how much they have. 

Wanda and Hannah