Before Kenya, I had never been to an orphanage before.
The orphanage we go to often is only a few minutes away from the church we are at, so we go there on Sunday afternoons, and sometimes during weekday evenings.
What strikes me more and more each time we go is how it is such a family there. The kids aren't related. There may be a few siblings, but not for the most part. Yet it feels like such a family. There is so much love in that place. It's definitely my favorite place to go.
They have a play area out back that we always go to when we get there. The walls of the area are covered in artwork of different things, one of them a huge picture of Jesus with "Jesus is Lord" written next to it.
It blows my mind how much fun we always have when we go. The boys love to play soccer, the girls and little boys love to get in a circle and dance and sing with us, or sometimes they just like to be held and loved.
Each time I walk through those doors, I pray for the Lord to help me love them however they need to be loved that day. Some days it's to pick up a crying child who got hurt and hold him and try and soothe him despite not knowing how to speak his language. Other days it's to go and talk to the quiet little boy alone in the corner who is too shy to approach the strange looking mzungus. And others its to be silly and laugh and play and pray that they know how much their Heavenly Father loves them even though they don't have an earthly father.
Each visit looks different, but my prayer is that to them, we mzungus always look the same–like Jesus, pouring out his love on them because of his love he has for us.
"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling."
-Psalm 68:5
