family day: this sunday was “family day” where the orphanage is open for visitors to come see the kids. while the orphanage is technically open to “orphaned and abandoned children”, there are also a good number of kids here who do have at least one parent, but that parent is unable to take care of them. so, every three months there is a visitor day for the kids who may have parents or extended family that might be able to come visit. i really had no idea what to expect. it seemed like it could be a very emotional and hard day, not only for the kids who didn’t have family, but i would imagine for the kids who do have family as well. if they do have family and they didn’t come that would be probably really hard… but even if their family did come, it would probably be really hard to accept why they have family out there and aren’t able to live with them. i don’t know, but a lot of the volunteers and i were really kind of nervous for how the day would go, but we planned a lot of activities to keep the kids busy. it actually ended up going a lot better than i thought and the kids handled it a lot better than i thought. a lot of the older kids were kinda quiet, i suppose because they understand a little better what is actually going on, but most of the kids were ok. a good majority of the kids didn’t have anyone come. i would say out of my 14 kids, 3 had someone come…. and not necessarily a parent, many had grandmothers or aunts come. it was very cute to see the kids who did have family come, though. they were so happy and excited and so proud to introduce their families. my god-child, salomon (who also has one older brother and two older sisters at the orphanage), had practically his whole family come… his mother, father and grandmother. i got to meet them and his father was really, really sweet. i guess it’s easy to judge all the parents of these kids here and think “how could you abandon your children or not want to take care of them?”, but it was just all a good reminder that we never really know what’s going in other people’s lives and it’s really not our job to judge them. i think it was mother teresa that said when we judge people, we have no time left to love them... and really i guess that is our job here... just to love the kids... we don't know why they're here or why they can't be taken care of by their families, but for some reason we are all here together.
si dios quiere: so they have this phrase here, “si dios quiere” (“if god wants”) and they say it after you say something like “see you later” or “see you tomorrow”. so they first time i heard it i thought it was kind of an interesting thing to say and kind of a little depressing to think that you might not see that person tomorrow, but the more i started to think about it i realized that it’s just a really great moto for how we should all live our lives. i remember when i was discerning whether or not i should come here it was really hard. i knew i felt some sort of call to do it, but it was still hard to think about leaving my whole family and all my friends and my job that i loved. but I remembered coming across this quote from mother teresa: “let Jesus use you without consulting you.. take whatever he gives and give whatever he takes with a big smile… if he wants something done, he gives us the means. if he does not provide us the means, then he does not want that work done.” so, i just applied for the job here and told myself if i got the job then i was supposed to do it and if not, then i wasn’t. there’s a lot to be said for the effort and work we put into things and i think God gives us the free will and ability to work hard so things will happen, but sometimes i think it’s good to be reminded that we aren’t in control of everything and sometimes we just have to let go and this “si dios quiere” attitude in the dr has taught me that this week. there is actually a lot of peace in living this way.
“human will becomes truly creative and truly our own when it is wholly God's, and this is one of the many senses in which he that loses his soul shall find it." -cs lewis
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