Day two of painting included painting the boys' room. The main reason the staff at this particular orphanage asked us to paint, was so the boys could have a brighter room. It was dark without clear paned windows. The only outside light they had coming in came from two small translucent windows at the top of the double doors going to the outdoor playground. Most of the time I'd imagine these doors were closed. This time we had apricot and green walls to paint. The same green as in the girls' room.
The colors chosen for the room were bright yellow and a rich darker blue. Little did we know that it would take 4 coats of yellow paint to cover the walls well. The blue went over the green columns beautifully. Following the same format as for the girls' room, Monique painted special words and pictures on the walls.
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| Tina, Lizzie and John working hard on the second or third coat of yellow. |
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| I'm working on cutting out with the first coat of yellow. |
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| Cindy cutting out with the blue. We had plaster falling in many areas on the walls, but we did the best we could given the circumstances. If given more time these could have been patched properly. We simply were not afforded the time to repair walls and paint. Maybe another team could do this for them in the future. |
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| Oswaldo lending us a hand. He and his dad brought us delicious pizza for lunch that day! He and his family were awesome tour guides and translators for our trip. |
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| Tina and I |
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| Here I am with Courtney and Tina. They are an awesome Mother daughter team! |
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| The play area afterward. Monique did a beautiful job! "Jesus is my friend" painted on the wall. |
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| "We are never alone." |
While we were painting, three children kept coming in to see what we were doing. One was a 10 year old boy who I mentioned in an earlier post about our first day at this orphange.
Our First Day at Orphanage 2
This little boy, whom I'm going to call "Marty" (though this is not his real name) popped in from time to time to check out what we were doing. I so wanted to talk to him. I tried, but my Spanish is poor. The language barrier truly bothered me. I asked him if he liked the color of his room and he said. "Si!!" He began teaching me colors in Spanish. I would have liked to have just hung out with him and given him a roller to help us. Tina had the same idea and she had the roller. The next thing I knew she had handed over her roller to Marty. He was trying his hand at rolling a wall with another little girl and they were sharing the poll. It was precious. Tina thought just like any other child, he would be interested in participating in making his room fresh and new. I love that Tina did that for him.
One story I have to tell you about Marty. He saw that Monique was painting special pictures on the wall. He made a special request of her. It was not something she or anyone would have expected. Perhaps a boy would want an airplane or a cool car painted on the wall, but this is not what Marty asked for.
" Would you paint an angel on the wall for me?" An angel..... of all the things he could have requested. He wanted an angel. There was one empty wall left and this is where Monique went to work.
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| "Jesus loves the children." |
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Once the beds were moved back, Marty's bed was almost directly under that angel. The best part of this story is what Oswaldo told this orphan. I'm going to try to relay as closely as possible what he said.
"You know Marty, you don't have to have an angel on your wall to feel loved and protected. God already loves and protects you. All you have to do is pray to him. Ask him for an angel and he'll send you one, just for you, but all you have to do is have faith and talk to God." It went something like this. I love how Oswaldo used a teachable moment to minister to Marty.
If I only met Marty for this short time and if I never really got to communicate to him what I truly wanted to say because of the language barrier, I was so glad to have met him, because now I can pray for him. He may not remember I'm praying for him, but that doesn't matter. I am. I know he exists. I know he is special in God's eyes and I know God wants me to pray for this boy and his family situation.
I will never forget his red glasses..... or his smile, when he did smile. Or giving him chocolates and watching him skate on his skater shoes back and forth between the girls and boys room this day. I won't forget the first day I saw him on the play ground and how he kind of kept to himself. How he was so intrigued by my "spill proof" water bottle and tried and tried to figure out how it opened. I had to push the special button on it for him and then he wanted to look down the hole to see. It was so funny. Now that I met him, I am not the same. I will pray that his family situation will improve so he can go home, or that if this is not possible for family to care for him, that God provides a new family for he and his sister.
I won't forget you, little prince of the King.
