House of Joy Visit (Reflection from David)

Went to the Sisters of Mercy (St. Theresa of Calcutta's group) orphanage and hospice yesterday. It was quite moving. It was immaculate. We went to the nursery and their must of been 20 cribs in the room each with a small child or infant in them. I picked up a child about 6 months old and sang her Sweet Georgia Brown and bounced around the room looking at the other children. After 5 minutes we had to go and I had to put her back in her crib. She immediately grasped on to me tightly and started crying. It broke my heart. Thankfully a caretaker came over to comfort her, and Jo Clayton came over and comforted me (another crying baby).

In the hospice there were about 20 men and women with HIV. They were very happy to see us and greeted us with song and clapping. I went to shake hands with the oldest woman to show respect and everyone around her jumped up to enthusiastically shake my hand. Again it was hard to leave them. I just wanted to spend some time and hear their stories.

Next we went to the school. It had orphans and children of the mothers in the hospice. As we walked over some of the older children (grade 3) were out playing and saw us and started waving. The sister turned the opposite way to show us a classroom, I looked at the kids and shrugged with my hands as the group was turning away. They shrugged back so I took off and ran over to them. They gathered around and wanted to know where I was from and what my name was. I asked them about school and what their favorite subject was and they started yelling out what they liked. A few liked science and I told them I was a scientist and encouraged them to study hard and pay attention in school. I started to shake their hands and someone put out his fist to "hit the rock." I added a little flare to it and everyone wanted to hit the rock. I had out both fists as the kids noisily hit the rock. It was a fun few minutes and I wish I had a rocket balloon on me to share with them, but I left the rest of them with a boy at Sunflowers Family Centre. 

This was a extraordinary place to visit. I could spend several days as it was full of love and joy.