This National Day holiday, Rachel, Nicole and Caitlin were able to go and visit the Starfish Foster-home in Xi'an. We met Amanda, the founder, a couple of years ago when she brought a couple of sweet little kids to Nanjing for cleft-palate surgery. She has devoted all of her time and energy to taking care of children who need medical attention. She works hard to get them the medical care they need and get things in order for adoption. When Amanda was here, she invited Rachel and Nicole to come and help at the foster home when they could. I felt that this year, the girls were old enough to go on their own. Amanda had close to 20(yes in one apartment) children there while the girls were there. They stayed for one week and worked close to 12 hours a day...holding babies, and helping change and feed them. They each came home wanting us to adopt them all! What a fantastic chance for them to fall in love with these children. Here is what they had to say about their experience:
My Orphanage experience:
Coli:
When we, that is Rachel, Caitlin and I, arrived in Xian to help those little orphans I was surprised by how excited I was! We arrived in the normal sized apartment and were greeted with cries, chaos and the smell of milk and poopy diapers everywhere. It was very overwhelming, but at the same time as weird as it may sound, comforting ( I think it is the result of my “motherly instincts” us ladies were born with or something, because I cant come up with any other reason for why a poopy diaper would make me happy). The babies were more than adorable! For instance there is Sean who loves the word "banana" and gets ecstatic when the wiggles is turned on ( even though they watch it about 100 times a day!) and then there is Katelyn who won't look at you, but when you hold her, she stops squirming and glances at you from time to time when you aren’t looking. The nannies did most of the dirty work, like feeding, clothing, and changing the diapers of the babies,( we did do a fair amount though) but we had what I think was the most important job, to show love to them. After living in the big city orphanage where it is one nanny to 27 babies, where there is over 600 of them, you wouldn't expect them to be shown too much love. My heart was full of love and service the whole time! The love I had for those babies was overwhelming me almost to the point of tears. My respect for all the things parents do for us expanded greatly. I don’t think I could have come up with a better way to spend my vacation then serving those cute little orphans! *I am still working on getting my parents to adopt at least one! (if not all 19 :-P but that will take a little more convincing!)*
Caitlin:
Going to Amanda’s Orphanage made me think more about how much God loves Each of us and how much he cares about us and those adorable orphans. This has been a great experience because we grew a lot of love for them in the short week we were there. And we were very sad when we had to leave. I also gained more appreciation for the mothers who have children and need to take care of them. Even though I’m not a mother and I won't be one for a while. Haha. I figured out that it is a lot of hard work (especially when all of them want to have attention and want to be held all the time) But it is worth it!! At the end of each day my sisters and I would be so tired, but every night I wasn’t upset. I was happy because I knew that it was to help. And it was Fun!!!
I LOVE those little kids! And i am so happy that I had the chance to go and help out at the Orphanage in Xi’an.
Rachel:
Xi'an was the most amazing experience ever! I had so much fun! Getting to know the kids was the coolest thing. I grew to love them all like my own kids. They all have the sweetest spirits and they all have such personality. I learned a lot about mothering and about how hard it is sometimes. We were really exhausted most of the time. But it was way worth it. I miss them all already. Now I just have to convince Mom and Dad we need 20 new family members!
