Dear Friends,

Now back in the sweltering heat of Yangon, our team has continued our marathon orphanage-tour. Today we visited four more, two of which are enjoying new land and buildings funded by Orphan’s Tear, and one of which will soon be enjoying that same blessing once their new building is completed. The first orphanage we visited today, however, is still using the same old dilapidated houses they were using when I first visited them six years ago. Our team members, who have been visiting many orphanages in their “after” condition, got a little taste of a “before” condition once again. Eighty-nine children are crammed into three damp “houses” that defy description. I felt ashamed that so little has changed in six years as I walked onto their grounds again. As our team sat listening to angelic children sing, the very pungent smell of an over-used latrine periodically wafted into the room with the breeze. It was a strange incongruity, like a mixture of heaven and hell.

There is basically one reason why this particular orphanage does not have better facilities. It is because the hearts of the director and his wife are so big that they have taken in almost 90 orphans and unwanted children. That means we’ve got to build them a facility that is three times as large as the average ones that we’ve built, which means three times the money. For that reason, I’ve given preference to our smaller orphanages whose project costs are more affordable. But as I listened to those beautiful children offer up an heavenly aroma of singing to God—punctuated by the earthly stench of an overflowing septic tank—I made a renewed commitment to try harder on their behalf. We’ve already purchased land for their needed new facility. May the Lord help us to finish what we’ve begun.

Below are some photos of a few of the beautiful kids we’ve spent time with today, plus some group portraits of several orphanages with their new buildings in the backgrounds. — David