09/29/2025
I just returned from visiting the orphanage again for the second time. I drove up the driveway and when some of the kids recognized me, they began running towards the car! The littlest children brought me flowers. The older children stood back, just waiting for me to see them. I spread out my arms and said “give me a hug” and suddenly my arms were full with little kids, big kids…! I was embracing children who know how to love, and know how to show their love freely.
I spent the next three days in pure bliss. I gave out backpacks that my friend Cairo had bought and donated to BBNB. It was such a joy to see the younger children wearing their empty backpacks around the next day! So cute! It was such a joy to set up all of the new tofu making supplies and machinery that we raised money for at Bent, But Not Broken, (the nonprofit I established this last year and support of children like these who don’t have traditional means of NGO money.). I cooked with the children a giant pot of pasta sauce and pasta that we ate for dinner that night, while Noodle brought his crew/team and they worked in the fields with the older boys installing a drip system on half of the farm. These three efforts were the focus of our trip: installing the drip system so that the children don’t have to work so hard and the crops could increase; bringing the backpacks so that the children could carry their books to school and fit in with the other children; and introducing the center to making high source protein-rich food, including tofu, soy milk, and soy flour. We even made biscuits out of the soy flour. All of this was a first for me… The biscuits were too salty, the first batch of tofu was a little sour(Father Pao wanted to use vinegar as the coagulant instead of the gypsum I bought,) and some of the soy milk got a little too watery. But the love, the joy and the enthusiasm turned out perfectly! This was three days of hard work in the fields in the kitchen and while the kids were studying for a big upcoming test at school. Yet everyone demonstrated such joy. And even though it was a school night, many of the children perform dances just for our sake! Every minute was perfect.
I wonder what our world would be like if everyone chipped in the way these children do. If everyone loved the way these children do. If everyone was so helpful, kind and enthusiastic, the way these kids are. Everything we did was such hard work rendering flawed results for our first efforts. Even so, there was nothing but the most sincere appreciation felt and shown.
I want you to understand, because these children are teaching me so much. Not only about true strength of character that they demonstrate. Not only about sincere gratitude. Not only about kindness that they show each other…and impressive cooperation. They are teaching me how a loving family acts, which is so ironic given that these children are all orphans.
