Saturday was the day that the Central Community Church takes Christmas presents to the children in the orphanage they created and support in Tijuana, Mexico. The children had made wish-lists, like children everywhere, but for these little ones, people in Riverside made those wishes come true. We haven't made trip since 2010, so a few things had changed. The road into Tijuana has been improved, but the new overpass is diminished by the homeless who are living under it.
The road into the part of town with the orphanage is still rutted but the orphanage has been well maintained and was recently painted. It is currently home to about 30 children, including the children of the Manager and the Pastor. That also includes 3 babies. They are here, like the others, for a variety of reasons. Not all these children are orphans; sometimes they were placed here for safe refuge from a bad situation. Sometimes it works out OK; Victoria told me that 5 babies were recently reunited with their families after the parents proved they had created a cleaner, more stable home for them. This tiny girl is 4 months old. She has been here for 2 months, and will probably be available for adoption. Wish I could have taken her home with us!
Most of the children are older than her, but not by much. The majority are between 7 and 3. This is what adorable looks like:
When we arrived the children were being entertained by clowns brought in by another church. That was a good thing because we had to wait for the van with the toys to make it through customs. But just as the other volunteers left, our van and Pastor's car arrived. Since it's not Christmas day yet, the decision was to take all the presents into the room with the Christmas tree, and then let the children each open one gift. There was a big box of presents for each child, and they all lined up to help carry the boxes inside.
When all the presents were upstairs, each child opened one. They were careful to pick the "right" one - shaking, hefting, even peeling back the corner of the paper to take a preview peek! And as the wrapping paper came off, the room was filled with high-pitched squeals and shouts of joy.
But wait, there's more! After the excitement died down Pastor asked the children to come outside for one more present. They didn't know it, but the van was filled with bicycles. This is what 29 bikes and trikes look like in a small van:
The children needed to stay inside the gate while the bikes were being unpacked, but as the first ones came out, a bunch of little boys stood just inside the gate and screamed for joy! Eventually we got all 29 bikes in and each child excitedly found on one that fit and tried to ride. Since the courtyard isn't very large there were some bumps, but everything worked out fine. It was almost an hour before we could get everyone to settle down for a group photo.
Afterwards Teresa fixed a big dinner for everyone - ham, mac-and-cheese and salad. It was a wonderful day but eventually we had to leave. It was dark by then and traffic in Tijuana was awful, especially at night. I still cannot believe Teresa got out of there without a scratch. Several times I could not see any space between her car and the others. We made it safe out of town, then sat in line for a couple of hours waiting to get to the border. As usual, there were a lot of people trying to get money from the captive audience. There were children juggling, old people in wheelchairs begging, and countless vendors, all dangerously close to the cars.
Our reward for waiting in that long line was churros and Mexican Coke. Churros have to be warm to be any good, so we insisted on fresh ones. They helped sustain us for the long drive home.
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