Mercy Ministry

Yesterday, Bonny Jean, Kate and I went to Mercy Ministry. It’s basically an orphanage started by Mother Teresa. There were around 28 kids between the ages of 3 months to 5 years old there. A lot of them were placed in Mercy Ministry due to malnourishment, but some ended up there for other reasons:

One child was left in front of the door wrapped in a trash bag.

One was tied to a tree with HIV written above her head.

One was left in a taxi after her mother said she would be right back…but never returned. And this child had HIV as well.

Then, there are several mothers who show up to Mercy Ministry because they can’t feed their children. And the sisters of Mercy Ministry almost never turn people away.

So, once we got to the building, we were immediately attacked by all the children. We held their tiny hands, danced with them, held them in our laps while someone told the story of Noah’s Ark, and tried to love them as much as possible. When I arrived, a little boy grabbed my hand and pulled me around the place, pointing at everything we passed. Then, we walked up to a tree and he decided he had to use the restroom…but he didn’t want to let go of my hand. While attempting to pee on a tree with one hand, he also managed to pee all over his clothes. By the time I realized what he was doing, I was a little to late to stop the mess. But we kept on walking and then he suddenly wanted to be picked up! Now, before we got to Mercy Ministry, we were told not to pick any of the children up unless they are too weak to walk. So I knew I could not pick him up, plus he was sopping wet from his own urine, but he kept grabbing my hands, trying to climb up me. I finally had to walk away because a lady told me that he was a cryer (a child who whines and cries for no reason) and to just let him throw a temper tantrum.

About half way through, I ended up being able to hold one of the weaker ones. She was adorably tiny, and loved to snuggle. I held her as we danced, and I held her as we all played with a giant parachute while the other children ran under several times. When bubbles came out, her eyes lit up! I never got her name, or her background story, but she made my day.

The last thing we participated in was lunch time. The children know the schedule, so with one command from the sister, they all went running into a little room with two long tables & sat in their chairs. It reminded me of the beginning of the movie Oliver Twist, if you’ve ever seen it then hopefully you can picture it. At such young ages, the majority of the children could feed themselves, but some had to be helped. The little boy that I fed kept falling asleep!! All of us volunteers and the sisters were laughing because it is rare to see a little boy falling asleep while being fed…he must have been very tired. I kept having to shake his head to wake him up in order to take another bite.

After lunch, every child had to sit on a little potty and try to use the bathroom. Just imagine 28 small children sitting on tiny potties around the room. It was quite a funny site to see. While they were doing there business, we packed up the cars, said good bye, and headed back to the ship.