My Day With a Special Needs Boy

On Saturday me one of my teammates and I were asked to go to an orphanage to watch a special needs kid for a day…. We said yes without knowing entirely what that would entail.

We got picked up by a stranger in a truck with a middle aged woman and a young boy in the back seat. I introduced myself to the woman and got to know her story a little bit. Her name is Carmen and she‘s originally from Brazil but now lives in Peru running an orphanage. She’s been having a lot of heart troubles recently and the mountains of Cusco haven’t done her much good. She explained how she is leaving to go to Brazil for three months to have heart surgery. Her days leading up to leaving she’s had to place her children in different homes which has been emotionally taxing On her. She was now dropping off one of her last kids, Carlos. Carlos is 8 years old and is one of the sweetest little boys I’ve ever met. He suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome making it difficult for him to do normal everyday tasks like eating and putting his shoes on.

In just a short time knowing him I quickly learned the three things he loves most:

Mickey Mouse, playing with animals, and riding bikes.

As we drove to the new orphanage that she would drop off her sweet boy Carlos at I saw her embracing every single moment with him.

We pulled up to the orphanage, got Carlos out of the car, and I watched as Carmen handed over all Carlos’s papers, and explained all his needs with so much care and love.

We got his bed out of the truck and set it up in his new room, we folded and put up all his clothes, showed him around, and introduced him to all the other kids. Then I watched as Carmen gave him a hug and walked back to the car with tears streaming down her face and my heart was struck with so much compassion.

She’ll be back for him in three months but I wrestled with the reality that this place was not equipped to take care of Carlos how he needs and that wrecked me. It was then that God reminded me that he sees Carlos. He doesn’t look past him. He knows his every need, he’s so faithful to meet him where he’s at, and longs to draw near to Him. My prayer has been just that these past few days. That he would encounter God regardless of his circumstances and that God would continue to use me, my teammates, and many others in the future to show him the depth of God’s love.

I’m so thankful that for this month my team and I are able to help out by spending some of our days looking after him, just playing and laughing together while the caretakers at the orphanage have other tasks they need to tend to.

Keep Carlos in your prayers and that God would continue to bring people to this orphanage to help look after him in the next few months.