This morning, 2 other ladies and I planned a trip to visit the largest hospital in the city, just a 10 minute taxi ride from our house.  As we are home caring for our kids, we are challenged to find a way to be a part of the relief efforts.  Our husbands are seeing the destruction and effects first hand.  We want to find a way to give what we can while we stay in the city.

First, in preparation I got out all of the unused crayons that I've been saving (I'm not sure how I got so many!) and had the kids go through and put them in groups of 6 so that there were varieties of colors.  Then we rubber banded them and put them in a bag with a few sheets of blank paper and some crackers.  It seemed like such an insignificant thing, and it is, but it at least gave us a start. 

The kids also started going through their toys and finding things that they could give to kids in the hospital.  Kyle found a stuffed "Ernie" that someone had given him that had a tag that say "Praying for you"  Kyle quickly put that in the bag to give away but then said that there was something he needed to fix.  The tag is in English, and he needed it changed into Chinese.  So, I worked on that while he found some other toys.

We found a friend who had been to the hospital recently visiting a friend who has been in the hospital for some time.  She told us that in the bed next to her friend was a 12 boy, injured by the earthquake, and whose family hasn't been heard from.  We decided that was where we would start.

The three of us met and got a taxi to the hospital.  After we got out of the taxi, we just looked at each other and wondered how to start.  We decided to pray.  Then we decided to just look for the building that we knew of and try to look like we know what we are doing.

We passed a big long line of people signing up to volunteer.  We realized we needed to cross the Emergency area but that area was blocked off.  We asked how to find our building and we were found our way there. 

It was so hard to know how to begin.  We quickly realized that some of the patients were not earthquake victims and had been in the hospital for awhile.  That threw us off.  It was hard to know what to do or say.

We started handing out the bags that we brought with the crayons and paper and tried to just make conversation.  "How old are you?"  "Where did you come from?"  "Is this your child?"  We eventually figured out how to tell the difference between the volunteers and the family. 

Let me tell you about some of the people we met.

Ma Cong is 12 years old.  His leg is badly injured and he is scheduled for surgery this afternoon.  His family hasn't been heard from yet.  Two students were with him, holding his hand and fanning him in the unairconditioned room.

Cheng Feng is a 9 year old girl.  Her head is shaved as she has some head injuries.  Her family is okay but they haven't been able to get to Chengdu yet. 

He Hua Wei is 11 years old.  His family hasn't been heard from.  He is not severely injured and in pretty good spirits.  The student that came to help him brought his laptop so Hua Wei was busy playing computer games. 

In the bed next to him is Zhou Yu Ye who must be about 6 or 7 years old.  Her distraught mother is with her.  Yu Ye is badly injured and very upset.  She was yelling "Help! I'm going to die!" over and over.  Her mom doesn't know what to do or say.  Neither did we.

We saw about 20 kids.  These are the ones who stood out the most to us.  Our hope is that those 3 kids whose family is not here yet are ones we can focus on and try to go back and see on a regular basis, and then help others in the same room as we can.  Each room has 4-6 patients in it.

We only saw about 20 of the 60 some kids in that ward.  There are 4 in-patient buildings, I'm not sure how many floors each.  Please pray for us as we find a way to help these kids and families.  Pray that we can share with them the hope that is in us.  Pray that we can bring at least a small amount of comfort to these that have so much need.  Pray that God would direct us to those that we can help.  While we are starting very small, at least with these few kids, pray that it would grow and we would have favor as more Chengdu families get involved with these families. 

Pray for Ma Cong and He Hua Wei, that they would family alive and that they would be found.

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