Training Day 2. I went in there not real sure how well this was going to go with hard words for our translator to translate and hard words for caregivers to understand.

All morning long, Erin taught through body language and our Chinese team member. The caregivers listened, taking copious notes and pulling their phones out to snap pictures of words on slides or Erin’s physical demonstrations. They interrupted her to ask questions to understand it all better or ask why things were true or why different stretches or treatments helped.

And, I pretty much sat stunned…and took a few pictures myself.

When we had gathered as a team early that morning, we prayed all about the training, praying specifically among lots of things that when specific children were brought into the training for Erin to model specific stretches and positioning, the child would be honored and somehow blessed by it. We didn’t know what that might look like, but we asked specifically for it. We knew that bringing a little treasure onto a mat in the center of the room with lots of people all around was a risky thing. When the little one’s ayi brought her in and laid her down with everyone gathered around the mat, the woman in charge got down too. In her good clothes, she got down on her knees and lowered her chest all the way down to the ground, prostrate on the floor. With her face only inches from the cheeks of the little one, she smiled and then started whispering “Yēsū ài nǐ. Yēsū ài nǐ. Yēsū ài nǐ. Yēsū ài nǐ” until that little girl inside a broken body smiled back. Honored and blessed. In front of everyone.

The planned 2-hour training ended up to be more like a 4-hour one which ended with us having a hard time even remembering our team time together that morning when someone had said she was worried about how this was all going to go.

He can’t hear well, they told us. But, he can definitely hear.

It wasn’t what I expected. I expected more color, more toys, more sunshine. I don’t know. Afterall, it wasn’t a state orphanage. Maybe I expected it to look more like some Chinese version of the daycare center where I worked for a summer in college. It didn’t.

The doorman muttered all sorts of things to us that even our translator had trouble understanding. But, he waved us through and smiled when he saw the director walk out to us. He asked us if we slept well. We assured him we did, and he said he was surprised because he thought we might be too excited to sleep.

The front hall was clean. dark and cool. damp. Some signs seemingly about rules for safety with interesting clipart were posted making that front hall look not unlike that of an office building, one no one really used. Two children’s areas were on that hall, each having two rooms, one for beds and one for play. We were invited right into the first area, like a friend might invite us into her living room. Come in. See what we’ve done with the place. When you admire it, I’ll smile and tell you to stop, but it will make me feel really good. In our aprons that looked like children’s hospital gowns and paper shoe covers, we joined the staff in the playroom.

There was nothing spectacular about the space. It wasn’t bad. I’ve said spaces with much less. But, it wasn’t what I thought it would be. With chalky paint, uneven and worn out floors, worn out lots of things, it really wasn’t all that beautiful. But, we stayed. Of course we did. This is where we had been asked to go. This is who wanted “expert” training on early childhood education and class management, about caring for children assigned the umbrella diagnosis of cerebral palsy, and about discipline and correction. We didn’t just stay; we watched.

It was nearly evening but the room got a little brighter as we watched. Brighter still was that place after we spent time in both rooms. The rooms looked different when we left that first day. In fact, even the doorman may have looked a little different.

It wasn’t like that daycare center with a play kitchen, dress up corner, and reading nook. It wasn’t like the state orphanages where I’ve served either. It was different. And, there were beautiful things there that weren’t at all worn out. Beautiful things that had nothing to do with donations from foreigners or painted murals on the wall. It just took a little time to notice them.

Two full days of trainings would start the next morning, trainings that would give us the opportunity to teach a few things and tell them how we love what they’ve done with the place.

I might have been too excited to sleep that night.