Midland Orphanage, Zimbabwe

Since around October 2007, my neighbors in Sacramento, the Nordbergs, have been graciously gathering children’s clothing for me to bring to Zimbabwe. The clothing has come from their children, nieces, as well as other neighbors. Their four year old son Owen has been very involved in this project. When they were done, they had collected over 80lbs of clothing. I brought this clothing from California to Maryland, where I picked up some additional donations from DiLeonardo family. They brought shoes and clothes from Ohio to Maryland with the assistance of Grannie Jeannie. In total, I now had 100 lbs. of clothes… with a few beach balls, cards, jump ropes and other fun stuff thrown together in two extra large duffel bags.

Even though the U.S. Embassy had posted a warning to not bring items of “aid” into Zimbabwe, I was determined to get these clothes to the orphanage. As you may have read in an early posting, I was questioned at customs about the duffels. I told them I was traveling from Zim to Botswana via overland and taking the clothes with me. They had no problem with this response and allowed me to pass through. Needless to say, I had quite a bit of luggage…. one personal carry-on and a rolling duffel and two EX-Large duffels for the orphanage.

I had been mentally preparing myself for the trip to the orphanage for months. So why is it my eyes welled-up with tears as soon as we pulled into the drive way? There they were, smiling and waving with excitement as if they had been waiting days for our arrival. There are about six of us from Antelope Park who have come to visit today, that’s all that could fit in the van.

As we pile out of the van, the children shyly approach us. Their clothes are thin, warn, and faded. It’s very clear to me that it has been a long time since they have received “new” clothes. Ben, our project manager, carries the two duffels into the head mistress’s office where I help her and another house mother sort the clothes into three piles: babies, girls, and boys. We take the piles into a large room where they are placed on separate tables. There are three house mothers, including the head mistress. They begin to hand out the clothing. The children stand around anxiously hoping their name is called. Older children begin dressing the babies with their newly acquired outfits. Even though they missed out on receiving something for themselves, they seem to have pleasure in dressing the babies in their new outfits.

I duck into the head mistresses office to blow-up the beach balls. Without the children taking notice, I begin to launch them into the courtyard. Bright colored beach balls are flying in the air and bounce off the walls as the children jump around and chase them with laughter. Then I introduced them to the age old American birthday tradition of Pin the Tale on the Donkey. Barbara, another volunteer and school teacher from California, helped me to organize the game. The children had a blast! During the game, a baby boy about a year old wearing one of Owen’s hand-me-down shirts crawled up to my leg and was reaching up for me to hold him. As I held him in my arms, he sucked his thumb and rested his head on my shoulder. He remained there for the rest of my visit. At one point I went to put him down because a little baby girl around his age was crying because a beach ball had just hit her. She wanted me to pick her up. As I went to put him down he started to cry “Mama” and held his hands up towards me. How do you prepare yourself for something like this? I decided to sit down so I could hold them both. As soon as I sat down, two other babies crawled up to me. I now had four babies sitting on and around me all wanting just to be held.

Some other volunteers came over to play with the babies; it was then that I met Sebastian. He is 17 years old and lives at the orphanage. He wrote me a letter and wanted to read it to me. The letter said that he knows God has sent me to him because he has been praying so hard for a pair of trainers so he can play soccer and now he finally has a pair (thanks to my friend Christen DiLeonardo and her family). Well, that did it. The tears started rolling down my cheek. I have never felt such competing emotions. In one way I was so happy that he now had a something he needed and had be longing for, but at the same time I felt deep sorrow. A simple pair of used trainers had been the answer to his prayers. He ask for my address, I wanted his in return. Sebastian may feel that God has brought me to him, but I thank God for bringing Sebastian to me.