AHE Orphanage

My very good friend, Puspo, told me that he wanted to go to orphanage to celebrate his and my (really belated) birthday. It was Sunday and I decided to join him. Puspo and Renata picked me up from her house and we went to a christian orphanage which is quite far from my house. Finally we arrived in a narrow four floor house. It was my first visit to "Ada Hari Esok" Orphanage in my city. As soon as we entered the premises, we were greeted by a woman. She shown me the bedrooms, study room, and the worship room. She also explained about some regulations in the orphanage.

After chatting with her for few minutes, we went to see the kids. What I saw there moved my soul. There were around 40 kids out there. Some were too small, some were toddler, while some are teenagers. This orphanage keeps kids up to 18 years of age. Once they cross 18 years, they are sent to another city where they are admitted in school run by this trust.

As soon as kids saw us, they literally ran towards us. I took one of them and lifted her. While I was playing with her, another kid was tapping my legs. I guess he wanted to say "take me too" trying to seek our attention. Some were showing us their skill in playing music instruments (which is amazed me, wow). Some were crying.

We had bought some food items for the orphanage, so I distributed the food to those kids one by one. They really happy and delighted to see us, and so do we! After having lunch together, the woman started to lead a prayer, sing some christian songs, and asked those kids (and also us) to sing and dance together. That was really fun. After around 2 hours play together, we took some pictures together, then said goodbye to them.

I wondered how deprived this kids were because they didn't have parents to love them and take care of them. Some of them are unlucky because their parents had died but many of them were unlucky because their parents left them on doorsteps of the orphanage. Many children are abandoned because child is born out of unmarried couple and social taboo makes mother abandon the child. While some are simply abandoned because child which is born is girl, WTF. While some leave their child because they cannot afford it. Sad. This visit made me feel lucky that I was born in family which loved me and cared for me. Thank you because this visit made me keep visiting orphanage again and again.