The Healing Love of Family

In a speech in 2010, Director Zeng of Qinghai Civil Affairs Department, said about one of our children, "My deepest experience is the way Christian Action has influenced and been able to help one particular disabled child." I want to take this opportunity to highlight the help of one particular care-giver who continues, year after year, day after day, to pour out her love on Bin Bin, a child who was born with severe multiple deformities.

Because of his caregiver, Quan Ma, Bin Bin recently braved a CT scan with its frightening machinery.

Bin Bin was abandoned when he was two weeks old - probably because of the terrible deformities caused by Apert syndrome. He was four months old when he underwent surgery for the first time. Since then he's had eight more surgeries.

Now 15 years old, Bin Bin again underwent surgery on March 24th in an effort to minimize future occurrences of the sleep apnea he experiences because of the abnormalities in his airways.

Quan Ma is the person Bin Bin trusts most in this world. She started working in Bin Bin’s small group home in 2005, and she has been his ‘mama’ ever since. Every Chinese New Year, Bin Bin gives all his red packets to Quan Ma for safekeeping. She gives him the money whenever he wants to buy himself a treat. "He calls my husband 'papa', and  he calls my daughter 'sister'" Quan Ma told us. She does not consider her role as 'mama' to Bin Bin and the other children in her care as a job. "I cannot separate this job from the rest of my life. These children are like my own."

This sense of 'family' and the love the care givers provide as they look after their little charges is invaluable. Like any other child growing up in a secure family, he is secure in his mama's love, and  despite all that he suffers he is still able to produce smiles (that melt my heart every time).

Bin Bin is recovering well from his latest surgery in Hong Kong, but as International Children's Day comes around on April 4th, please pray for the best possible surgical outcomes for Bin Bin, and a quick and pain free recovery so he and his mama can soon return to the rest of their 'family' in Qinghai!