Xi Shui

After giving the challenge to help orphans in an earlier post, I was given a challenge of my own…Xi Shui (She Shway).

One of the teachers here got a call and was asked by a foster home director to come and get a baby for the week. She wasn’t given many details as to why she was asked to come and why this child needed to be fostered.

The foster home I speak of is a three bedroom apartment with about 22 kids ranging from infant to teen. There’s been a small group of foreigners including myself, who have been praying and hoping for an opportunity to foster the children, as a few are sick, malnourished, and in need of one-on-one love. So when the teacher received a call from the director asking her to come and get little Xi Shui, we were all excited for this providential opportunity to serve.

In order for the teacher to be able to foster him, she needed someone to help during the hours of 6 a.m. until 4 p.m., when she taught at school. Since we had been praying for an opportunity to foster again, we decided this was something we could help with and thus began our first week with Xi Shui; we are now on week three.

Each Friday the teacher calls the director to ask if she can have him another week and thus far we have had him for three weeks in a row and today she was given permission to have him for the next two weeks of Spring Festival vacation.

He arrived, at 6 months of age, very underweight and very fussy. We switched his formula, burped him often, and changed his bottle. Things seem to be going better, but his colicky ways are confusing and no amount of soothing, bouncing, and holding seems to pacify him at times.

He currently looks like a 3 month old and weighs only 4.7 kilos (or 10 pounds for you Americans). He cannot sit up on his own, roll over, or do most things a 6 month old can do, but he does smile big and captures your heart quickly!

Speaking of the heart, in the future he will need a heart surgery, a family to adopt him, and possibly some other surgeries after being thoroughly examined. In the meantime we covet your prayers as we continue to minister to him, endure his fussy ways, and build a relationship of trust with the director.