Tonight I gave my Tough Mudder finishers jersey to a 17-year-old boy at the orphanage where we are staying. He was passing a soccer ball back and forth with the younger kids. His right leg is 18" shorter than his left. He moves fast on the filed and on the ground in a gliding way. He is a real Tough Mudder.
Often people say to us what wonderful hearts we must have to adopt kids from American cities and from Haiti. It is embarrassing to hear, both because it is meant in the nicest way and because in a way we are creating a world that does not exist around us. The norm in America is video-addicted kids who believe the world owes them entertainment. Our family can be different.
During the time we stayed at the orphanage for kids with amputations and birth defects, I did not see them sitting in corners saying "I'm bored" or crying because they did not get an XBox upgrade. They live in a house with three hours a day of generator service. They care for each other and have fun with ragged soccer balls and sticks, and even play games that include their battered crutches.
As I write this I am sitting in the office of the orphanage with 75 babies. Both my wife and our son Xavier each picked one of the babies up as soon as we walked in the door. Two babies were crying, they picked up the babies. I am not as good by reflex as they are--not even close. But I get to live in that kind of family instead of one with kids that whine for their video stuff.
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