The building makes use of every available square inch. The halls are half the width of what you’d expect. Bunkbeds line the bedrooms. Dresser drawers labeled Zaira, Rosita, Lolana overflow with tiny pairs of socks and underwear. Wooden crates under the beds hold Edgar and Ulysses’ toys.

It was early morning, so the kids were only just finishing their chores when we arrived. One by one, they were sent out to the park to play with us. Our team played soccer and volleyball, climbed jungle gyms, and rode the see-saw. We outnumbered the children in the park, so I let the teens do all the interacting.

“My outreach is the teens,” I said to myself. “It’s their turn to play with the kids and have their hearts broken in empathy, to know they can make a difference in their lives even if it just means playing for an afternoon.” Besides, my stomach flu from the past few days still lingered and I had no energy.

I left the park to find a place in the children’s home to lay down. The only open seat was a slide right outside the dining room window. I closed my eyes and dozed.

“Why aren’t ya playing?” a voice asked.

I looked up into the sun. A small boy on a big bike stared down at me.

“I’m sick,” I said. “What do you do when you’re sick?”

“I rest inside,” he said.

“What’s your name?”

“Ezekiel.” Ezekiel smiled, then sat back on his seat and rode away.

A few minutes later, another boy sat on a swing across from me. A faint mustache grew on his upper lip, though he didn’t seem much taller than the eleven-year-olds I know back home.

“You’ll get burnt out here. Guess my name,” he said. “It starts with M.”

A few “m” names later, a satisfied Michael said, “guess my age.”

Fourteen-year-old Michael had been in the home off and on since he was a baby. The rest of Michael's story is in another entry.

While most of the kids watched the game, I found a quiet place inside and napped. It frustrated me to feel so weak and unable to play with the kids like I wanted. I felt like going home and contemplated walking.

Then My husband, Paul, walked in the room with a baby sleeping in his arms. “Here, hold him,” he said.

The baby was one-year-old Nathan, Nathan with the biggest brown eyes and soft, thin brown hair. Nathan who cried if a stranger tried to hold him. Paul passed him gently to me and I sat with him on the couch. He snuggled into my arms and laid on my chest. In only minutes, I’d fallen back asleep, too.

I woke up again an hour or so later with Nathan still sleeping on me. When he finally woke up, his groggy eyes fixed on my face with an unspoken question: “Who are you and why are you holding me?”

I expected him to cry, but he just kept looking at me. I learned that about Nathan—he looks and looks and solemnly takes in everything around him.

We played quietly inside. Even while he played he stayed sober and quiet. I don’t think he cracked a smile no matter how foolishly I tried to make him giggle.

When Paul returned from soccer with the kids, he carried on with Nathan and finally made him laugh and smile and play peek-a-boo. My heart ached for Nathan. It ached when I saw how few toys he had, how little adult attention and how unstimulating of an environment. His face and arms were dirty. A rash covered a part of his back. He hardly made any of the baby sounds I’d come to expect from a one-year-old.

Nathan and I stuck together until dusk, when our team had to leave. While the others said goodbye to the kids they’d made friends with and exchanged drawings and email addresses, I prayed that Nathan could have a good family soon.

I didn’t want to say goodbye. I wanted to be that family for him.

And not just for Nathan, but for Ezekiel and Michael, too. These boys are the lucky ones—removed from abuse or neglect. But how many more children are there in homes like this, or on the streets, or simply forgotten?