Children at the orphanage

Yesterday the suffering of these kids really hit home for me. One girl about 6 years old at the orphanage was throwing up; they weren't sure if she had malaria or just a stomach bug. For most of the morning she lay on a straw mat on a concrete floor. Later I came back and a little boy about 6 years old was whimpering in pain. He had tears running down his face so I asked someone what was wrong and she said "He has HIV/AIDS and sometimes he gets boils on his skin. This one on his chest is hurting him. When he squeezed it, a worm came out."

Gosh, all I could do was kneel down and put my hand on his shoulder and try to comfort him, but there was nothing I could do to make the pain go away.

Another boy was also crying. He had ringworms on his head.

I went and got a sticker for them. I managed to get a small smile out of the little boy who had a boil on his chest. But it really broke me just how much these children suffer.

And that wasn't all. I then started to collect stories of the children and take their photos. Some of the stories were aboslutly horriffic. Children had had their dads kill their mums. A lot of their parents had died from AIDS. Some were forced into prostitution, some lived on the street. Some fled the war in Northern Uganda when their villages were attacked by the LRA. One girl who is 8 years old now had her village attacked by the LRA when she was two. Her parents were burnt in their hut alive and she narrowly escaped. She was brought to the orphanage when she was 3 years old.

Another girl who is HIV positive was forced to work in the garden for her uncle all day every day, often starting at 5am with no food. She was only 9 years old and her parents had died the year before. She's 10 now and only came to the orphanage last year.

Another boy who I teach in my class was abducted by the LRA and forced to become a child soldier. He escaped after 3 months.

Looking at these children at first and even teaching them in class, you would never
in the world guess what they have been through. They are so happy, so friendly and so like any other children. They laugh and cry and play and argue.

When you hear stories like this from the other side of the world and you don't know the kids, it's very surreal and distant. We're so used to the statistics on AIDS and stories of war. It's almost like we're immune to it. But looking into the eyes of a child who has seen her parents die...that is an entirely different thing altogether. It's so real and so raw. It's shocking.

I could never imagine what these kids have been through physically and emotionally. But they are standing there and I am talking to them; they are not just distant pictures in a World Vision ad or national geographic magazine. They are real people. People who deserve a better life. And that is why I am here; to help in any way I can, and most of all to love them and show them that the way they have been treated in the past will never define who they are. There is hope for them.