Blind children, Special needs and the Children's home

Playground site!

What a day, what a week, WOW. How do I begin? Today our day started with visiting the blind childrens home in the city. There are 212 children there. It was a wonderful home where orphaned children and children that have parents study and live. It is for children that are blind, partially blind or have vision problems. If they are orphaned the government pays if they have parents the parents have to pay. These children are in a wonderful place. The director is SO kind and caring and asked us many times if we could visit a blind school in America and then come back to tell her what they are doing there so she knows if they need to add anything to her school. She genuinely cares about the children, she genuinely wants them to be something in life. She did tell us that in Kazakhstan the people view these children as throw aways and will not hire them even if they have a university education. It was very uplifting to know that some people really do care about the kids.

Our next stop was the special needs orphanage. 250 kids live here. Talk about a pathetic place . Very eye opening and very sad. We first handed out some wheelchairs, the kids were so excited. We had 5 and we could have used 50 at least. The first boy was so excited. He wheeled his chair EVERYWHERE. When we got to the 2nd floor to hand the last one, a little boy crawled in and said he heard that we are handing out wheelchairs and at this point we were out. It was the most sad thing I have ever seen. He cried and cried until finally we went and got the one that we were saving for the little girl in the hospital. None of us could take it so we had to give it to him. It was a very enlightening and heart wrenching experience. Knowing that most of these children will never be adopted is so very sad! But knowing that we made a bit of a difference makes it all worth.

Our last stop was the children's home where we are building the playground. Oh what a FABULOUS place, I mean fabulous an in clean, caring and way better than we have seen all week. The assistant director is such an awesome woman. The regular director is in America right now so we toured the facility with her. I bet she knows every kid by name and they all come running to hug her when they see her. She is definitely a very caring and sensitive woman! We could not have picked a better place for this playground to go. If the children have to live in a orphange setting without parents this is the place they will learn about love and life skills. This CH houses 350 children. Yes I really said 350, it is the largest orphanage in the country of Kazakhstan. It used to be CH#3 but now it is called the Children's home complex and it houses children age 3-18. I asked her if people come for the older ones and she said yes sometimes. She also told me that she loves americans because they don't just pick the kids with the best looks, they pick the kids that are close to there heart. She also Thanked me at least 50 times for the playground and for the help. She said we were welcome anytime. It was still sad to know that that are so many children with no parents but at least these children are in a loving environment and are thriving and learning life skills. The playground will go to good use!

As we wrap up our trip, we want you all to know that all of your support whether it be large or small is making a difference. Our organization is one that was started to care for the ones that were left behind. That is and ALWAYS will be our primary goal for the children of Kazakhstan. God tells us to take care of the orphans, if we don't who will?? Thank you for following our journey this week. There will be a next time, so start praying now. If you would like to join our team next year please let us know. We haven't got the dates set yet but we are working on some projects that will need your help! Thanks again!