i give myself a little shake to keep myself in the present. this time i am not on the bus as a heart-riven volunteer or translator, i am staff. i can't let myself go. can't allow myself to get carried away in the emotions of the moment. people need me. need direction. to my right a volunteer stumbles slowly off the bus, face buried in her hands, shoulders heaving. my hand rests gently on her back as i whisper hope into her ear. "He knows. He sees. He loves them more than we do." - words once spoken into my breaking heart by sympathetic staff as i said goodbye to my first orphans. just down the aisle someone is blocking the way as more children are carried onto the bus. a translator, slumped over his boy, tears pouring onto the child's face like rain, tries to say goodbye, tries to let go, but can't make himself. i've been there. my heart swells up within me as i made my way toward him. a light pat on his shoulder, "it's time. c'mon. he knows you love him. he'll be ok."
but the worst - the worst for our rending hearts is not the sight of the adults' grief, but that of the children's. i walk towards the exit of the bus, leading the last volunteer who is so overcome i wonder if he will faint. as i walk down the aisle, hands - so many little hands - reach out after me, grasping, clutching my clothes, my hand, my arm, anything they could grab. into every dear little face i look, kissing them for the last time, trying to smile, wiping away tears, even as i mix them with my own. their voices rise and rise, the wail growing louder and louder at the impending departure. the driver releases the clutch causing a rush of smoke and the loud hissing that says the bus will be pulling out within seconds. just seconds to go, and it feels like an eternity - like my heart is being ripped out and carried away with each precious little person the bus carries. "jie jie, don't leave me! don't go! i don't wanna go back there! jie jie!! jie jie...!!" they scream. and the sound pierces down to my very soul. it's the scene my dreams are made of. the sounds that haunt me when i'm not there, not pouring out energy and resources and sweat to help them. the cries that drive me.
i grit my teeth, clench my hands, and promise myself and my God again that someday i won't have to leave them. someday i will be in a place where we can stay together and i can love them with His love and help them day after day to grow in physical and mental and emotional strength as their little hearts and minds heal. for now though, for now, i have to do it. i have to give one last kiss to the sobbing girl closest to the door, give one final wave, shout one final, "jie jie loves you all!" to the heart-broken, sobbing bus-full of kids, and step off the bus. i have to watch the doors close, give high fives through the windows where i can see the tear-streaked faces staring out at me, and run with the bus until it goes so fast that i have to stop to catch my breath. then i will stand waving until long after i can't see the bus through my tear-filled eyes.
~~~~~~~~
fast forward one week. it is friday again. again i stand on a bus; again, surrounded by translators and volunteers accompanying their children onto the bus, making sure they are comfortable for their long ride. it is time again to say goodbye. to give last kisses, last hugs, last high fives; time to run after the bus and wave goodbye until it is out of sight. time for my heart to break again. no matter how many times i do this, i never "get over" it. never get to the place where a piece of me doesn't go with them, tearing my heart apart as the bus drives away. over the past four days we have played the same games, sung the same songs, watched the same movies, loved with the same love we have been pouring out for three weeks now. but this time something is different. i look around, taking in the scene, trying once again to open my heart to it, and still protect it somehow from the pain. but this time it's a different kind of pain. as i look into these faces i don't see sadness, heartbreak, or despair. no little hands reach out to grab me, and no voices protest aloud the hell that is taking place in their hearts. these children sit calmly in their seats, gazing matter-of-factly out the window. they even smile as they wave at their volunteers and translators outside. the driver closes the doors, releases the clutch, and a repeat of the previous three weeks begins it's vicious course. after the bus rounds the bend i stop, hand frozen in the air where it waved, stomach clenching so that i feel sick and my legs feel weak. i drag wearily back to my fellow staff friends and we lock our arms around each other's shoulders as we commend them to Him who knows and understands all hearts and who protects the afflicted and abandoned, and who is a Father to the fatherless.
these kids are from a home where, from their actions, behaviors, responses exhibited over the last week, we fear they do not have as safe, protected, and healthy an environment as we hope all our precious kids can return to after camps. despite their silence and apparent nonchalant attitudes as the bus pulled away, i have seen, throughout the week, many, many evidences that their little hearts are screaming and crying out inside them, for love. it is impossible to know what secrets are locked in their past, what made them the way they are today. but it is apparent to anyone who tries to love them that their hearts and emotions have been locked away in some place perhaps even deeper. shut off from anything and anyone in an attempt to protect themselves from further hurt and damage. it's so hard to feel like just another adult in the long list of adults who have come and gone in their lives. so hard to not be given enough time to break through; to prove to them that we are different. so hard to send them back to a place where in all probability they will go on and on being hurt, only deepening the emotionless silence that has become their world - their safe place. only in His strength...only because He knows their names and their situations...only because His heart breaks for them even more than mine...only because He's worthy of our trust...
it's the only way i can let them go.
as far as the kids from the first scene go, they have been to camp before - some of them multiple times. after camp they return to a foster-care situation where there are loving people evaluating them, helping them get treatment and therapy, and advocating for them to find forever homes. yes, it is heartbreaking to watch them go. it hurts to see them hurt. but in comparison, it is much easier to see their tears, to watch their increasingly normal reactions to grief, than it is to see children who have been hurt so badly that they are completely closed off to emotions of any kind, no matter how sad or happy.
so in retrospect, as i process each week from this past summer of camps, the lessons learned the tears shed, the kids i came to know and love - my heart breaks for them all. my tears, my prayers, my future plans are for them all. but i grit my teeth a little harder, and clench my fists a little tighter when i promise myself and my God again that someday - someday i will do something for these. for the ones who didn't cry.
