This is a guest post by my friend Katie Adams...wise words from a wise woman with much experience working with orphans and mission teams!
With mission trip season fast approaching can I offer some gentle advice from this adoptive mom of a child raised in an orphanage (and having worked in Nicaragua for 13 years)?:
1. Focus on the staff, not the kids. These caretakers work 24-hour days caring for the children you are visiting. They’re the ones changing diapers, washing hands, disciplining, loving, and teaching these children you’ll visit for a few short days. THEY need to know you care about them and support them more than the kids. Ask them their names, what they do – ask about their families and why these choose to work for typically far below-average wages – ask if you can help them and how you can pray for them. Care for them first.
2. Talk, don’t touch. You are probably one of several visiting teams. Constant physical affection from strangers is confusing, often unwanted, and can have long-lasting impacts on being able to appropriately bond with others. It may be cute that some kids run up when you arrive and want to hug, but it’s a sign of inappropriate attachment. These kids need to learn to bond well so instead of hugging, holding hands, and having them sit on your laps (please NO!) ask them questions – get them to spend time in a group playing a structured game. Basically ask yourself: “How would I treat children if I walked into an average American public school kindergarten room?” Do that instead.
3. Don’t call them “your” kids. They’re not. Hopefully someday they will be reunited with safe, loving family members or adopted. Unless you are one or the other you are visiting. Pray for their families, their potential future families and their current orphanage family…and be grateful for the opportunity to visit.
4. Don’t make promises – just pray. These kids have had more promises made to them by visiting teams than you can imagine. Your wishes may be very well-intentioned but these kids take promises to heart far more than you can imagine and constant disappointment adds to their already fragile understanding of trust. The best thing you can do for these children is to encourage their caretakers, financially support their orphanage, and pray.
I am incredibly grateful for the staff at Hogar Puente de Amistadorphanage who raised my daughter for nearly 6 years. And yet every summer I see teams walk by all of these incredible orphanage staff workers who never draw attention to themselves and miss out on their stories.This mission trip season I would LOVE to see photos of visiting teams with orphanage workers even more than the kids they care for. Get to know an orphanage staff worker this summer – they truly are heroes wearing invisible capes! #imetahero
