On a summer experience a year in the making, 17 rising sophomores provided care, compassion and friendship for ailing Chinese orphans and, in the arms, eyes and hearts of the people they helped, they learned a lifelong lesson about love.

The students, accompanied by experienced traveller and CSD special needs teacher Sheena Green and a 10-person entourage of chaperones and parents, departed for China July 18 and returned Aug. 3. In two weeks as volunteers at two orphanages an hour outside Beijing, they tackled an assortment of chores including cleaning, painting and yard work. But the most tender job, and the toughest one to leave behind, was spending time with the children.

“I just didn’t expect to fall in love with the kids so quickly,” Sarah Fink, one of the 13 girls on the trip, says in summing up the emotions and memories from the experience. “They just pull you in. I miss them already.”

Fink and classmates Aurora Taylor and Carly Huffman joined Green this week to talk about their trip and try to explain what the 16-day adventure meant to them. Each girl, like all the others who participated, cherishes special, personal moments.

For Taylor, who had previously traveled to Europe and been introduced to special needs children as an intern in Green’s classes, it was the simple feeling of picking up a gleeful child and just playing. “I don’t usually get the chance to do that,” she says. “Just playing with them and seeing them laugh. That’s a great memory.”

And for Huffman, an experienced world traveler with Ireland and Hungary visits stamped on her passport, it was a connection with one small girl that defined her summer. “There was one little girl, Beth, and I played with her a lot of the time,” Huffman says. “She was not very responsive because she had a brain delay disability. I blew on her stomach once and she smiled immediately. I was moved by that. I think I’ll always remember that.”

Those memories are what Green was hoping for when plans for the trip first took shape last August. With approval from the CSD board, Green spread the word among CSD’s freshman class and spelled out two very basic requirements for those interested: a heart for children, and a willingness to work.

When students and families committed, fundraising efforts began. Those planning to take part were encouraged to set aside birthday and Christmas money to help finance the trip and to be involved throughout the year in helping to generate money to make the trip possible.

“It required a commitment,” Green says, “and it was definitely a working trip.”

She says the students’ primary responsibility was to do whatever needed to be done at the Shepherd’s Field Children Village and the Agape Family Life House in Langfang. She found the Christian-based facilities, which specialize in serving children with disabilities and special needs, years ago, and made several trips herself to volunteer. She knew what the students would see and be expected to do, but she could only hope what they would discover.

The CSD team painted a mural at Langfang Orthopedic Hospital and cleaned, made minor repairs and painted many of the houses and other buildings at both facilities. One of the brightest moments in their cleaning campaign came when a supply of Comet cleanser was delivered.

“Oh my gosh,” Fink says, “the amount of Comet we used in some places was ridiculous.”

But the satisfaction of knowing that the next time a child was placed in that room it would be sparkling clean and germ free, Green says, made all the scrubbing worth the effort.

The four boys on the trip also had the experience of being the first non-Chinese individuals to mow and maintain the lawns at the orphanages. It may not have been glamorous work, but imagine how it will stand out on a college application.

Sightseeing was also on the agenda, although Green says she and the other adults almost had to force the students to take time away from the orphanages.

“It was strange,” Green says. “We’re there at The Great Wall and we’re having to urge the kids to understand how special it is. I think all of them wanted to be back with the kids.”

Even though they took inmany of the rare venues that China offers, Green couldn’t hide her smile when, a week after the trip, thoughts that stirred the clearest memories involved the orphans.

The girls talked about the memories of seeing tiny, smiling kids afflicted with brittle bone disease happy just to see their new American friends enter the room. They talked about one their classmates — a quiet, almost reclusively shy boy according to Green — being swarmed by groups of giggling kids who were inexplicably drawn to him. And they talked about saying goodbye.

One of the orphans, an older girl with brittle bone disease, an understanding of English and a very outgoing and opinionated nature, stood out. Lydia is her name, and she developed a friendship with Fink at the Agape facility. Once when Fink was involved in another project, Lydia led a group of other kids in a determined effort to get Fink’s attention.

“She had six kids all make cards for me,” Fink says.

When the day of departure approached, the CSD group had the option of where to spend their last hours. Fink says it was an easy choice.

“I had to go back to Agape,” she says with a bright smile masking a touching moment. “I mean, I couldn’t just leave and not see her again.”

In a Twilight Zone-like convergence of time zones and space, the 12-hour flight from China back to the United States only took 30 minutes off the clock. Soon after, the local teens were back in their summer routine and preparing for the start of a new school year.

Using Facebook and other modern methods of communication, they have already shared stories and “you have to do this” conversations with classmates and other friends. And they have already started fanning the flame to fuel interest in a return trip.

There’s nothing Green would like more than to make the China trip a regular part of the CSD calendar, but for now she’s savoring memories of the group’s experience with the orphans.

“We’ve had most of these students for a long time,” she says, “and I think we were comfortable in what to expect. But to think about these kids spending a big part of their summer break doing this and then to see the things we’ve tried to poured into them over the years come flowing out — caring for others and helping when you can — it was just tremendously rewarding.”

The students, with vivid memories of smiling children and fresh, enduring friendships, agree. 

Who went?

Students taking part in the trip, in addition to Fink, Huffman and Taylor, were: Katie Lesseur, Olivia Samples, Megan George, Brooke Nash, Nkenge Edwards, Breanna Coughlin, Zoe Warner Morgan Crawford, Laura Wenzel, Maddie Crow, Noah Watts, Carson Talbert, DJ Chaffman and Brennan Kayes. Adults on the trip, in addition to Green, included Kevin Green, Joy Warner, Jessica Smith, Connie Wessner, Charlotte Fink, Susanna Crawford, Mary Lynn Kayes, Steve Watts, Melissa Huffman and Bev Lesseur.