To the Baby Hospital

One of the missionary families have recently infiltrated one of the hospitals here in Kharkov. They worked specifically to be allowed to volunteer with the orphaned babies. These precious children are currently being kept in the wing of one of the hospitals here until their papers are completed so that they may be put into an orphanage. All of them are under one year old and because they are in a hospital instead of a home they are behind in development. One boy is almost a year old, but cannot walk by himself and has a way to go before he will be able to. Yesterday, there were plans to visit this hospital, but a couple of the people going had to cancel. This left an extra white coat, so I was invited along to wear it.

I had a great time! The hospital requires that visitors wear white coats, masks, and booties over their street shoes. After dressing and cleaning our hands, we were escorted to the room our group usually visits. Because these children are just there till they're put into the main system, the number of children varies. EJ, who goes almost every time, says that last time they visited there were just a couple of babies. This time there were a couple more than half a dozen.

When we got to the room, the sweeties were just waking up from their nap time. They were remarkably quite wakers, not one of them cried. I spent my time holding a particularly sweet boy with a full head of thick black hair. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to find out his name (it was written on a tag attached to his bed, but I couldn't make it out). He was great, but really wiggly! He'd often get a panicked expression on his face and start wiggling around as if he wanted to go somewhere or find something. But he'd stop when I distracted his by humming Disney's "The Spectrum Song."*
When feeding time came along the nurses let me give the fellow his bottle, which he polished off in record time! We got to visit for a little longer, but we had to leave before 5pm when the coat storage closed.
The group goes regularly every week or so, and now that I've gone once it's likely I'll be able to go more often.

'Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.'

-James 1:27 (NLT)

*Red, yellow, green, red, blue blue blue/Red, purple, green, yellow, orange, red red