June 17, 2008 (Tuesday)

The Lord’s Hand In My Life: I have been praying that any feelings of tension between girls in our group would somehow be alleviated…today everyone was happy and peaceful…Plus I received a package in the mail that my mom sent – that’s a miracle in itself.

We were outside all morning which means I had ample amounts of time to spend with my Andrei. He participated in his usual routine of running around the playground to every toy. He will point at an object on the playground, look at me for approval and then run over to it. He’s a cutie. Today something interesting happened with Andrei. A sister and brother about 4 and 2 years old were playing on the playground. It was the first time I had seen them before. Andrei was climbing up the ladder when they first came outside, and the second he saw them playing he stopped and stared. He stood there watching them from across the playground in mid-climb for at least a minute. I don’t know what he was thinking about, but he looked like he was in deep thought – like he was remembering something. While he was thinking he was calm and had a serious and almost sad look on his face. I wanted to know what he was thinking about so badly. I wanted to grab him and kiss him and tell him everything would be okay. What frustrated me with that thought was that I couldn’t promise everything was going to be okay. I couldn’t promise that he would go to a family that loved and adored him the way he should be. It made me really, really sad. After he got done pondering he looked at them and pointed. I could tell he wanted to go over and say “hi” to this little boy and girl so he held my hand, and we walked over to them. When we got over to them he pointed and grunted at them as if he was trying to invite them to play. I could tell he wanted to play with them desperately. The little boy and girl just stood there, looked at him, and pretty much ignored him. It absolutely broke my heart. They just stared at him like “you’re weird.” He can’t speak because he can’t hear and because he can’t hear he makes grunting noises which can sound strange at times. The whole situation made me really upset. If children act this way towards him now I can’t imagine how they are going to act towards him in the future. Kids can be so cruel to children who have disabilities. He is such a bright and intelligent little boy. All he wanted to do was to play with them. It killed me to see them brush Andrei off the way they did. I wanted to yell at them and say “be friends with him!” That must be how a parent feels when their children has been rejected or hurt by someone else. I wanted to take the hurt he felt and any future hurt he would experience because of his inability to hear away from him. It’s so frustrating that I can’t. It makes me sad that there is nothing else I can do but sit there and love him. AHHHH! I guess all I can do is pray that the Lord will find a way to take care of him. I just wish I could adopt him…at least then I’d know he would be loved. Please add Andrei to your prayers. He is a beautiful little boy who needs to go to a loving family that will appreciate his sweet spirit, and help him reach his potential.

After the orphanage I got my package from my mom. I was so excited to get a new workout tape. TaeBo is getting really old. Hopefully it will give me a good workout. It says that it guarantees visible results after 10 workouts….we’ll see about that.

At the hospital I saw Claudio. I think his stomach is getting bigger every day. I tried asking one of the nurses what was wrong with him. She didn’t know…Mary and I found a boy on the 8th floor. He is probably about 4 years-old, and he was severely handicapped. He was the skinniest thing I’ve ever seen that was alive. The poor thing looked like a skeleton with a thin layer of skin over his bones. His legs were probably the width of two of my fingers combined. I couldn’t tell if he had been neglected or if he was simply sick. When I picked him up he seemed scared instead of comforted by the concept of touch which is unusual for children. He kept shaking at first until he realized he was safe. Then Mary and I started singing primary songs to him. He immediately calmed down. The other moms and kids in the room smiled and listened while we sang. I don’t know why – neither of our voices are amazing and we kept messing up on the words…haha…maybe it’s because they are songs that bring the spirit. Whatever it was he really liked our singing. Then the second we stopped singing the boy started crying and freaking out. We had to leave and so I quickly patted his back and “shhhed” him. He calmed down and we left without him crying…

I didn’t get to visit Florine for long today, but we found out the diapers we’ve been giving him he has been selling….that kid is such a stinker. It was hard not to laugh about it, but none of us are going to give pampers directly to him anymore. We’re going to give them to the nurses. What are we going to do with that boy?

On the way out of the hospital we found Annie talking with a student who is studying to be a nurse. We were all about to leave and so the girls participated in the regular routine of pulling their scrub top off displaying their cotton t-shirts underneath. (We aren’t allowed to walk around with them on outside the hospital because it draws too much attention.) As Annie was pulling hers off the nurse guy tried to help her, and she quickly pulled away and said “nu” (no). Then he asked if anyone else needed help. The men here are such perverts. A few seconds later he looked at me and shook his head, because I had already taken my scrub top off before I had walked outside and he wasn’t going to get to watch me. As we were walking away Annie said he told her that he watches us change. Elisa added to the comment with “I don’t get it. Why do they get such a thrill of watching us take off a baggy t-shirt to display another baggy t-shirt underneath?” Maybe it’s just the concept that we are taking something off… Who knows. That’s the question of the day.

The last adventure of the day happened on our way to use the internet at the other apartment. MacKenzie and Mary needed to send a quick email and they wanted me to go with them. I grabbed my stuff and we headed out the door. On the way to the apartment these two dogs in front of us were wrestling and playing with each other aggressively. We all started freaking out and you can probably guess – they followed us….MacKenzie, Mary and I tried to remain calm, but boy were we frightened. They would stop and wrestle and then run and catch up with us. They’d walk right next to us just to intimidate us. I think they could sense we were scared. Out of everyone to follow…the irony. At one point I decided to run across the street hoping they wouldn’t follow. That was a dumb idea. They chased after me. MacKenzie and Mary were like “I thought they were going to bite you!” Then by the time we got to the other girls apartment MacKenzie, Mary and I were laughing so hard we were crying. The laughter was out of fear and irony…. Once we arrived at their building we thought the dogs would go away. Wrong again. The dogs ended up following us up more than four flights of stairs to their apartment door. When we arrived at the door I shooed them and they finally went back down. After knocking for several minutes we discovered no one was home, so we decided to head back. When we walked out of the building we looked around cautiously for the dogs and didn’t see them. Within five seconds they had found us again and they walked by us the entire way home. We had to run into our building and shut the door. We were freaking out….we were so afraid they were going to end up biting one of us. One of the sister missionaries got bit by a dog around here a few weeks ago, and she had to fly to Germany to get her shots. Not fun. Dogs are EVERYWHERE here…I wonder if they have a Humane Society?