Miskay

Day 9, Friday, January 3

Today we visited Miskay orphanage, the last of the orphanages on this trip. It was a great orphanage to end on. The kids were all so happy and joyful. It helped us to feel better after some of the heart-wrenching goodbyes at the other orphanages. We did a number of fun activities with the older kids, but the little ones were the ones that I loved to see the most. They had been very withdrawn the first day that we had visited, and it was wonderful to see them come out of their shells and begin to interact. There was one little girl in the infant room who was very shy and seemed very sad on the first day that we were there. Not for lack of care, she was just very quiet and sad. But today, she recognized some of us and it was wonderful to see her smile and to hear start to talk and giggle a bit. The goodbye today was very bittersweet. The kids were obviously sad to see us go, but they didn't cry or wail. I had been holding one little boy and playing catch with him, and when I told him that it was time for us to go, he went around and gave us all a kiss on the cheek to say goodbye. It was the most amazing feeling ever to know that they had all had such a great time and were very glad that we had come to visit them.

-Zechariah Weils