14 and Counting - A Family Like No Other

Meet Nathan and Cindy:

Cindy is a 39-year-old from Pennsylvania that has always found adventure and excitement in her life. In high school and college she was very involved in sports and clubs and was a star athlete on her cross country team. After college, she whisked away to China where she lived for four years teaching English and experiencing all the peculiarities of the Chinese culture, complete with eating cockroaches and scorpions, and living in the most extreme conditions in tiny rural villages. Following her cross-cultural experience, Cindy returned home to the States where she scored a great position as teacher and coach at a local high school. She bought a house, had a nice car, and kept her thirst for adventure alive by doing things like sky diving. Somewhere in there, she felt an urge to take a trip to Africa with a group of people from her hometown. Little did she know, that trip would change the rest of her life.

Nathan is a 42 year old who became an orphan at a very young age. Due to difficult circumstances in her life, Nathan's mom realized she could not take care of her multiple children, so she took Nathan down to a nearby Children's Home and had to say goodbye. Nathan was then taken care of in a family environment where he spent his childhood and youth as part of a family with dozens of other brothers and sisters, each one coming from similar backgrounds and situations. As a result of his years at the Children's Home and his place within this family, Nathan received a solid education, learned English as a first language while also learning his country's native language, learned strong character and good ethics, was taught to be a hard worker and to be useful with his hands, and developed a passion to help other children in his same situation.

You can only guess what happened next.

Cindy took a trip to North Africa and knew right away that it captured her heart and was somewhere she would be working for a long time. On that trip, Cindy ran into Nathan, who was back helping out at the Children's Home he had grown up in. The two hit it off, spent the next few months corresponding by email, visited each other several times, and within the next couple years were happily married and living back in the country where they met. Over the next few years, Cindy and Nathan began working full time at the Children's Home and eventually had two of their own children, in addition to fostering another little girl that was brought into the Home. There were several other families that lived there as well - other parents who had also had the same passion to help orphaned children in North Africa - and so a little community of families was built, with each set of parents taking in anywhere from one to seven children. Unfortunately, over time, circumstances changed and some of these parents were unable to stay in the country with the children they had been raising. As a result, two families ended up returning to their original countries, leaving 11 children with no foster parents to care for them again.

With their small family of five, Nathan and Cindy hadn't planned on having too many more children, but the call on their hearts to do something for these broken children was heavy, and they knew what they were supposed to do. The small, quiet family with three kids suddenly turned into a vibrant, dynamic, and boisterous household with fourteen children between the ages of two and ten.

Across the way at the Children's Home live Lesa and Barry, a couple who is a few years ahead in the child-rearing process (their youngest is 11). After living at the Home for 16 years, Lesa and Barry have taken in around 17 kids, about half of who are off at college or entering the work world and the other half who are still at home. Next door to them is a woman named Myrna who serves as the nurse for the Home and has also taken in three children at different periods of her life, including the young girl she is currently raising.

This is the community that I was privileged to step into a few weeks ago.

Over our two week break from classes, the four of us interns were sent to this Children's Home for a week to offer support, help, and service in whatever way we could to the families there. As you can imagine, there was plenty to do.

The kids were in school during the time we were there and were gone a lot during the day, so we really took advantage of the times they were home. Breakfast was served at 7 am every morning, and all the dozens of kids gathered around two long tables for a delicious morning feast that the mothers had prepared. We repeated this same routine at lunch, which the families are fortunate to be able to spend together every day since the kids come home from school for lunch, and at dinner. In between meals, we spent time with the kids working on homework with them, helping with their chores, reading stories, and of course, playing lots of games.

In addition to Saturday, the kids had early release from school one day during the week, so we had several opportunities to spend the whole afternoon doing activities and games with them. We hiked, played kickball, had four square tournaments, played playground games, did tug-o-war, and even played ultimate frisbee. After an entire day of physical activity and playing outdoors, I kept waiting for the kids to get tired and wear out.

They never did.

I guess when you have over 20 kids around there's always going to be someone who's got some energy. :) 

We had a blast though and I loved the precious time we got to spend with the children. Upon arriving, I had so many difficulties pronouncing each child's name and I thought, I'm never going to remember these in a million years. Within two days, I knew every single kids' name. But more than their names, we got to get to know the personality and character of each child over the time that we spent with them, which was my absolute most favorite part of the experience. With that many children, there was every personality type imaginable... crazy and outgoing, silly, quiet and shy, smart, reserved... so I enjoyed learning about each kid and finding different activities to relate with each of them. Some of them wanted to play cards, some wanted to have wrestling matches, and some wanted to paint nails.

 

 

During the daytime while the kids were at school, the interns and I got to venture out to nearby cities and do some sightseeing. I may have done a bit of traveling in my life, but this was a completely new experience to me. I have never seen landscapes like I saw in North Africa and I have definitely never been in markets and cities that were anything like the ones we visited. They absolutely blew me away and I found myself at times feeling like I was in a movie, or at least seeing things I had only ever seen in movies before! We walked through markets with camel and goat heads hanging in the windows, craftsmen hammering away at metals and materials, leather factories that reeked of cow dung, and carpet workshops with men spinning fabric into beautiful tapestries. After I thought I had seen it all, we were steered into the animal market to walk past shepherds and herdsmen guarding dozens of sheep tied together at the neck while local village men bargained to trade or buy the livestock.

On one of our escapades, we journeyed up to old ruins on a hill that overlook the city and the entire countryside below. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

When we weren't sightseeing, we got to spend our free time hanging out with the younger kids that don't go to school yet, the older ones who are in college and were home for the summer still, and the parents. Things were always kind of crazy when the kids were around, and the parents make a lot of intentional effort to spend time with each one of their kids, so I really enjoyed the one on one time we got with each of the adults. It gave us a chance to hear their stories, their backgrounds, and to see and understand better the joys and challenges of raising big families.

Basically what I quickly learned is that these people having amazing hearts. The children, obviously, have been through quite a bit and some have a rough past. But Cindy and Nathan, as well as Lesa and Barry, have completely given their lives for these children to provide a home where they are loved, given security, instructed, and encouraged.

These parents are not just co-existing with their children in the same house to provide a roof over their heads. They offer love, attention, and support to each of their children every single day, with intentional interaction - both in an attitude of seriousness and training and a spirit of silliness and fun. I saw the life in these children's eyes, the joy in their hearts, and the thankfulness from deep within for being a part of such a loving and caring family. What is more, the parents have not committed to taking care of the children until they are 18 and then send them out to find their own way in the world. They will be family for life. They will see these children go to college, get married, have grandchildren, and will be around any time they want to come back home for a season.

Unfortunately, these three families are currently the only parents at the Children's Home, and with the families at the size they are, no more children can be accepted into the Home at the time. Cindy and Nathan, Lesa and Barry, and Myrna have proved faithful in their calling to care for these beautiful children for a lifetime, and they are now hoping for others to join them in doing the same.