Tim Baker: From a Child’s Outstretched Hand to a Place Children Could Call Home | 贝天牧：从一个孩子伸来的手，到一座属于孩子们的“家”

Sometimes, the course of a life can change because of one small moment.

For American Tim Baker, that moment began with a child.

In the late 1980s, Tim and his wife, Pam, came to China to teach. Around 1991, they began volunteering at a children’s welfare institution. What started as one experience in their lives gradually became something they could no longer simply walk away from.

They began helping children at the institution and went on to adopt several children with special needs themselves.

Eventually, the couple left their jobs and devoted more and more of their time to caring for orphaned and disabled children, establishing an organisation dedicated to supporting them.

They wanted to provide more than somewhere for the children to stay temporarily.

They wanted to give them something that felt like home.

In 1999, they began running a children’s village in Langfang. As the number of children needing care grew, so did the need for a larger home. In 2002, land was made available in Dawang Guzhuang, Wuqing District, Tianjin. The land had previously been used by local villagers for grazing sheep, which inspired the simple name given to the children’s village that was eventually built there: Shepherd’s Field Children’s Village.

Children from different parts of China, living with a range of illnesses and disabilities, received care, medical treatment and rehabilitation there.

Tim explained that Shepherd’s Field welcomed children with special needs from welfare institutions across China and raised its own funds to cover the costs of their care. His hope was that the children would receive not only medical treatment, but also the opportunity to live and grow up in an environment that felt as much like a family home as possible.

According to published reports, by around 2012, the work led by Tim and Pam had helped approximately 3,000 children with disabilities or medical conditions receive treatment, while more than 900 children had found permanent adoptive families.

But numbers are not the most important part of this story.

For Tim, what mattered were the individual children behind them.

Some children went on to join new families after receiving medical treatment. Others, who could not be adopted because of their age or medical needs, remained at the children’s village, where they learnt practical life skills and worked towards greater independence.

Tim once reflected that it had been a privilege to know so many children and to have been part of their lives. Even if, one day, the children no longer remembered them, that did not matter. What mattered was simply being able to help them for part of their journey as they grew up.

From the United States to China, from teacher to children’s welfare worker, and from those first encounters with a handful of children to the creation of an entire children’s village, Tim’s own life changed direction through each encounter along the way.

Perhaps this story, spanning China and the United States, also reminds us that kindness does not always begin with a grand decision.

Sometimes, it begins simply by stopping long enough to notice a child, and then choosing to take one more step and stay a little longer.

One small hand reaching out can change the direction of a person’s life. And when someone chooses to keep reaching out in return, that kindness can change the lives of many children who follow.

Human kindness does not end at the boundaries of language, nationality or distance. What remains is the simple fact that one life was there to catch another when it mattered.

Click here to watch Tim’s story.

有时候，人生方向的改变，开始于一个很小的瞬间。

对于来自美国的贝天牧（Tim Baker）来说，这个瞬间，与一个孩子有关。

上世纪80年代末，贝天牧与妻子潘姆拉来到中国任教。1991年前后，他们开始到儿童福利院做志愿者。与那里的孩子接触之后，原本只是生活中的一次经历，渐渐成为他们无法放下的牵挂。

他们开始帮助福利院里的孩子，也先后收养了几名有特殊需要的儿童。

后来，两人辞去工作，把越来越多的时间投入孤残儿童的救助之中，并成立了专门的救助机构。

他们想做的不只是为孩子提供一个暂时停留的地方。

他们希望那里更像一个“家”。

1999年，他们开始在廊坊运营儿童村。随着需要照顾的孩子越来越多，一个更大的空间成为新的愿望。2002年，天津武清大王古庄镇提供了一片土地。那里原本是当地村民放羊的地方，于是后来建成的儿童村有了一个朴素的名字——牧羊地儿童村（Shepherd’s Field Children’s Village）。

在这里，来自不同地方、有着不同疾病或身体障碍的孩子得到照护、医疗和康复。

贝天牧曾介绍，牧羊地从全国多家福利机构接收有特殊需要的孩子，儿童村自己筹集资金承担照护费用。他希望孩子们得到的不只是医疗上的帮助，也能够在尽可能接近家庭的环境中生活和成长。

公开报道显示，截至2012年前后，贝天牧夫妇所开展的工作已经帮助约3,000名残疾或患病儿童获得救治，并帮助900多名孩子找到永久收养家庭。

但数字并不是这个故事最重要的部分。

在贝天牧看来，重要的是一个个具体的孩子。

有些孩子接受治疗后进入新的家庭；有些因为年龄或身体状况无法被收养，便在儿童村继续学习生活技能，尝试走向更加独立的人生。

他曾说，能够认识这么多孩子，成为他们生命中的一部分，是一件很荣幸的事情；即使有一天孩子们不再记得他们，也没有关系，他们只是希望能在孩子成长的路上帮他们一程。

从美国到中国，从教师到儿童救助工作者，从最初与几个孩子的相遇，到后来的一座儿童村，贝天牧的人生也在一次次相遇中改变了方向。

而这段跨越中美两地的故事或许也提醒我们：善意有时候并不是一个宏大的决定。

它可能只是从第一次停下来、看见一个孩子开始；然后选择再多走一步，再陪伴一段路。

一只伸出的手，可以改变一个人的人生方向；而一个人愿意长久伸出的手，也可能改变许多孩子此后的人生。

人与人之间的善意，并不因为语言、国籍和距离而停止。它真正留下来的，是一个生命曾经认真地接住另一个生命。

点击这里，观看贝天牧的故事。