Rob Molloy has spent the past two summers volunteering with Bring Me Hope in China. This is the story of the boys he met this past summer in central China.
Xin Zheng, China – My name is Rob and I’m a twenty-year-old student from Dublin, Ireland. I was invited on my first Chinese adventure in summer 2011. I fell completely in love with China and the orphans I worked with, so was excited to come back for a second year, bringing an Irish team to the Xin Zheng camp!
This year at camp I was blessed with an amazing translator and now good friend Kevin, and two incredible orphan buddies. We had fourteen-year-old Qiu and seven-year-old Bei. Qiu was one of the most helpful young men I’ve met. He was a great big brother to all the kids! He would go around helping to push all the buggies and would make sure all the boys were behaving!
Bei on the other hand was a real spark! He had so much personality that just oozed out through his cute smile and contagious laugh! Bei was paralysed from the waist down and due to a shortage of pushchairs we ended up carrying him around the whole time! He was so worth it though!
Everyone fell in love with Bei and thought he was the cutest kid ever (which is true!). Everyone wanted a turn to carry him around and to get hugs. He LOVED all the attention! But after a while he would want to come back to Kevin or me! He was also one of the most crazy, silly and smart boys I’ve known!
Sometimes it’s the smallest things that mean the most to the kids. Not big presents you can bring, or buying them lots of ice cream, but just spending TIME with them! At the end of the week we asked Qiu what his favourite part of the week was, to which he said playing table tennis with me. That was just something we did for a few minutes one of the days, but it was that moment that he remembered most.
Both boys live at an amazing foster home called Eagles Wings (www.eagleswingschina.org). So, as hard as it was to say goodbye after our week together, I knew that they would be taken care of. At Eagles Wings they live in small homes with other kids of similar needs and abilities. They go to a special school, go on day trips, have enough clothes and food, are treated with the dignity and respect that they so deserve and above all else they are LOVED! It was obvious that these kids were a little different; these kids were capable of giving and receiving love in a way that changed ME forever.
I am so delighted to see those irreplaceable smiles on the orphans’ faces.They are unfortunate because they are lacking in love but they regain happiness and care thanks to Bring Me Hope.I am so glad that they feel loved and we are willing to share our love and care with them.I do hope they could keep positive and keep the purest smile always.