Orphanage visit part two.

The visit to the kids area was very, very difficult for me.  When we got up to that floor my first "umm" moment was when we had to be keyed and buzzed in.  The doors made me think of prison doors with their heavy metal, floor to ceiling bars.  You could hear kids in the background making unintelligible sounds.  Of course most Mandarin is unintelligible to me but this didn't sound a whole lot like words.  Tim was videoing and I had the basket of snacks and bracelets we had brought for the ones that were to be left behind.  When we got into the main kids area, there were about 10-12 kids, all boys except perhaps one little girl.  They seemed to range in age from 3 to 12 ish.  One little guy was very happy to see Jaden, it is the little guy with hydrocephalus that we always noticed was sitting next to Jaden in the pictures.  He pretty quickly retreated though and mostly just sat and grieved after initial hugs.  Every child in the room was special need.  Apparently at Jaden's SWI, they foster out all of the "normal" kids and keep only those that can't go out or go to school.  There are often preschool/school programs in the SWI's in China but his doesn't have anything like that.  The kids in Jaden's group were mostly severely autistic, severe CP, Down's syndrome and MR.  One child who may have been blind, stood in the corner and banged his head on the counter the whole time we were there.  The little guy with hydrocephalus is the only independently functional child in the room now.  I understand better why Jaden didn't seem to be affected by being beaned with a toy.  I expect as low functioning/high need as the others in the room are, Jaden was used to it.  I was so...I don't even know what emotion to say here...upset, frustated, angry, pained...to see what Jaden has lived in for his entire life.  It just makes me so frustrated that they think that because Jaden has a urogenital need that he was considered unadoptable and they felt didn't "deserve" to be fostered.   It makes no sense to be angry, I know that everything that happened led him to us, perhaps if he had been in foster care, he wouldn't have been listed at the exact time he needed to be for us to see him.  He is with his forever family now and I know that is the important thing but he would have thrived with a foster family, I hate that he didn't get that chance for one on one attention as a little guy.  He had no educational toys to play with, no crayons to learn to scribble.  Nothing.  There was exactly ONE toy in the entire room, a physical therapy ball, and a bolted-to-the-ceiling television set. There were a few posters on the wall but otherwise it was a  clean, barren room.  I think about how much Laura and Mitch loved all of the fun things we did with them and it hurts to know that Jaden had none of that positive interaction.

As soon as Jaden  saw the TV, he was transfixed.  He just stood there and ignored the chaos around him and watched cartoons.  The caregivers said that he loves TV.  There were 5 caregivers for the dozen ish kids and let me tell you, even with that many, they had their hands full.  I was unwrapping and giving each child a snack and they were obviously happy to have them.  When they noticed that Jaden was ignoring us along wth the rest of the room, they told our guide that he would probably be happy to stay here instead of going home with us as long as he had a TV.  What they did next had Tim seeing red (ok, who reading this has ever even seen Tim irritated?  It is pretty difficult to hit that trigger on him.).  They turned to Jaden and pulled his attention away from the TV and told him that Mama and Baba were going to leave him here afterall since he wanted to watch TV.  When Jaden when ballistic, we asked what had happened and our guide interpreted for us.  Ugh.  How to tell them that we don't find threatening abandonment even a little funny?  Tim picked him up and did his best to comfort him but at that point we had had enough and asked to leave.  Jaden was still screaming at this point and they were all trying to take him from Tim.  Tim is tall enough that he just lifted Jaden out of their reach and kept pretending he didn't understand what they wanted.  We pretty quickly got to the van.

  Next on the agenda was Jaden's finding spot.  He was found in the Fuxing Apartment complex.  Fuxing apprently means, "one who rises from despair."  That is a very hopeful sentiment for a very hopeless place.  It was so sad.  Tim chose not to get out of the van as Jaden had just settled down.  Obviously, he wouldn't have know the meaning of the place but even without knowing that it was his place of abandonment, it was pretty bleak.
With all of the emotion that colored the visit.  I have to say on the positive side of things that they obviously care for the kids and seem very patient with them.  The kids were clean and well clothed.  I think that the malnourishment we see may be the lack of variety of foods, it is hard to tell.  Under his many layers of clothing, Jaden is a bean pole.  I imagine  that he was pretty well left to feed himself, the vast majority of the others would certainly need to be fed.  He is definitely not a picky eater and in fact the only thing I have seen him actually refuse is asparagus.
I can pray that his early experiences are used in some good way by God.  I know that it has made him very accepting of differences.  We have a 2 little girls with significant facial differences in our group and Jaden doesn't even seem to notice.  I saw other kids staring and heard one little guy ask the dad what was on his little girls face.  (The dad handled it with grace and said she had a booboo that they would take care of when she got home.)  Jad seems oblivious to differences.  He (generally) shares beautifully with other kids, even things that he holds precious.  He doesn't act put out when Tim or I give our attention to the other kids.  In some ways he seems much more grown up than other 3 year olds and in some ways seems behind.  What is obvious is that he is a bright, caring young man that will eventually know that he is loved forever.