The Vice Principal Is Amazed By Our Kids

Arnett (Back center) with students in Qinghai

Arnett Edwards is the Vice Principal at King George V School in Hong Kong and he is one of the most impressive men I've met! For almost ten years he has been visiting our Children's Home in Xining. When you read his diary extract below I know you too will be impressed by his incredible empathy and love for our disabled children. I believe God gives each of us at least one special gift, and I'm sure that Arnett's gift from God is his ability to connect with these kids.

A huge thanks for allowing me to visit the most wonderful Xining Children's Home for three days in June; as ever it was a very memorable experience.  Here’s an extract from my diary which I know will interest you...

Arrived at the children's home at 10am and they were already serving lunch!  With only a handful of staff to feed about 25 children, it takes a while. Fourteen children can only lie down or just sit in a chair... they can't communicate. Today I fed four children; this takes up to 20 minutes per child as most have difficulty swallowing. The nurses are always pleased with the help.

These young children remind me of old men… they just look at you inquisitively, and seem to be thinking all the time... I firmly believe they have many pearls of wisdom inside them but they just cannot communicate this to us. I love interacting with them. There are some amazing kids here. Every movement is an effort for them and their courage never ceases to amaze me.  

One child who I fed (I call him James) just sits and stares, so I tried some stimulation. I put my iPhone earpiece into his ear... I will never forget his smile.  But what then amazed me was that he watched me changing the tracks... he loved it and laughed so much. And then he wanted to do it himself!  He doesn't have good arm coordination but to see the concentration on his face was amazing. I left for lunch feeling that I had made one little chap very happy.

One girl is mute and generally shows very little response, but when she sees me she immediately tries to give me a thumbs up sign... this is something I do all the time when I visit. This is something that I will never forget. I then gave her the iPhone and she smiled broadly and then chuckled!

In my last hour there I went around saying good bye to the children as well as feeding the two "wise men" who I had fed on the first day... James seemed particularly sad to see me go… he just stared at me when I said goodbye... hopefully I’ll be back in three months' time.

Arnett is planning to take some KGV children with him to visit the Home in October. He’s also planning "some sort of event" for his 50th birthday which he hopes will raise donations for the Home to mark a decade of involvement with our kids. I hope it will be only the first decade of Arnett's wonderful involvement!

I'll let you know when his birthday gets closer but in the meantime please help by donating and emailing this to your friends. Thank you!

A Friend Loves At All Times

I've written to you before about the sadness my staff and I feel when one of our children leaves this earth.  But there's another dimension to this loss which we don't always expect to find in a home where many disabled children are barely able to communicate.  It reminds me of how little we may know about what's going on in the minds of children such as this.

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Listening Is Kind!

The Bible reminds us, "Be kind and compassionate..." but we can’t be compassionate unless we listen to people and discover their needs. In our busy whirl of daily activity it’s easy to forget that listening is an important act of kindness.  For our staff, listening is the essential key that opens doors of hope to people like Nimal, a Sri Lankan who escaped the fate of many of his assassinated relatives during the horrors of the recent civil war in his country.

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Saving "Treasure"!

Guo Tong Yi was found in June 2007 when she was less than one year old. Police couldn’t find her parents so she was sent to our Xining Children’s Home.  We found that she had hydrocephalus, which can cause the heads of babies to swell to accommodate excess cerebral spinal fluid.  We took her to Beijing for surgery and Teresa, a wonderful friend of Christian Action, paid for a shunt to be placed in Tong Yi’s head. She then cared for this little infant for a few months after surgery. When Tong Yi recovered, we arranged for her to be cared for by foster parents in Xining for two years.

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When a little thing means a LOT!

The devastation and heartbreak caused by an earthquake is something most of us will never experience, so this week I took our whole management team to see the movie Aftershock, because CA is involved in an earthquake-prone area.  The film about the 1976 Tang Shan earthquake was made in mainland China, and the collapsing buildings reminded me not only of the Yushu earthquake, but also of the block of flats that collapsed earlier this year in Hong Kong.  I think it’s ironic that sometimes we learn the best lessons in the midst of great devastation.

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