Orphans

A few interesting side stories came out of our activities that were reported on earlier.

Orphans:
One of the adult leaders from the South Africa group, Noel, shared his story one night following the two days we spent in a village building the school/church. Noel was orphaned at a young age, along with his brothers, and grew up in an orphanage in South Africa. His father had been abusive and left the family, and his mother sent them to an orphanage when she felt she couldn't care for them anymore. At the time, orphanage policy stated that no children could be put up for adoption until their birth parents had not visited them for a full year (to ensure that the parents had really "given up" on the child and were ready for adoption). Noel's mother visited them once a year, right before the year deadline was to come, so that the children were never eligible for adoption. Finally after years in the orphanage, he was allowed to be adopted at the age of 7. Upon coming to Bethel for the youth trip, Noel had many reservations about going into the village as he knew there were several orphans there. The thought of seeing and interacting with orphans would be too painful he thought. He decided to go to the village despite his reservations. At first he stood back from the children and observed, hesitant to interact. At one point he sat down on the ground to rest, and it was then that a young orphan boy sat down in his lap looking for some attention. Noel was so overcome with emotion and couldn't help but indulge the child with some love and attention. From that point on, his heart was opened up wide to the little orphans and he spent the entire day interacting with them, playing ball and giving them hugs and attention. By seeing the joy it brought the children and feeling the love back from them, he felt healed from his pain. God filled him with warmth and joy from this experience, and you could hear the excitement and encouragement in his voice upon telling the story. When we first arrived at Bethel, we were informed that in order to have hot showers in the morning, someone would need to get up at 4am to light the boilers (aka the "donkeys). Noel volunteered as he had said he could never sleep, and would already be up anyway. We wondered what kind of issues would turn at twenty-something year old into an insomniac! On the last day that the South African team was at Bethel, we all awoke to cold water in the showers. As it turns out, after the healing day Noel spent with the orphans, he was finally able to sleep.