Delphine and Guillaume Gauvin The Gauvins with their children Emilie 10, David 9 (adopted, Chinese), Benjamin 6. [Provided to China Daily]

As I follow my guide into the playroom at the Bethel Foundation orphanage, at first I don't notice the lovely wooden floor, the expanse of sunlit windows, the piano, the drum set, or the colorful art that puts an exclamation point on the cheery space.

What I notice is that one of the big wooden doors, open on our arrival, has quietly closed behind us.

And my 18-year-old guide, Xiao Hua, is blind.

She's moved forward into the room, explaining where the toys are and when "the kids" have music lessons and how the nannies take care of "the stuff". I almost miss it all, because I'm distracted by that door. Do I tell her now, or wait until we are leaving the room?

Two minutes later, I decide to do neither. Xiao Hua has guided visitors around the facility many times, and that door, I suspect, is an old acquaintance whose tricks she knows well.

She does not disappoint me. Her shiny metal cane, tipped with a baseball-sized plastic orb that clatters as lightly and cheerfully as she talks, sweeps toward the steps at the room's entrance. I followed her up, 1-2-3, and her hand is on the door.

Her stride, and her matter-of-fact chatter, has barely broken.

I've re-learned the first lesson of Bethel. "We're not here to help the children," founder Guillaume Gauvain had told me on the hour-long drive to the suburban Beijing facility, "we're here to teach them how to help themselves."

Ten minutes later, Xiao Hua ("You can call me Christina. That's my name!") is escorting me across a small street in the compound, around a corner, over a curb and now down a moderate slope toward a colorful playground. She turns slightly toward me and giggles as she sweeps that all-seeing cane.

"My mobility is very good!" she chuckles.

No kidding.

"This is the little boys' house," she says as we step into another warm, sunlit room. Next door is her own home. The two bedrooms sport wood-framed beds with colorful quilts, and stuffed animals tucked snugly around the pillows. Everything is spick-and-span with the help of Nanny, but the residents make their own beds and they are charged with putting their things away properly.

Back in the school, we stop in on a busy classroom. "They have mobility class every day," says Christina, as we watch fourth-grade level kids grapple with oversized buttons and zippers. Most can dress themselves, depending on their ability level. There are about 30 residents here altogether, most blind, some with cerebral palsy, some autistic.

Next stop, the library, a favorite of my guide. She has mastered Chinese and English, and now works in the Bethel office translating Chinese into Braille.

Was that hard to learn? I ask.

"Not difficult!" she says, showing me the plastic headed stiletto she uses to punch the Braille into paper. She loves books, especially Chinese books – about life – and storybooks. "They have interesting things," she says in her exclamatory style. "They are also very funny!"

In the music room, I meet the teacher, Lucy.

"She can't see," Christina confides, "but she can play any music!" Under Lucy's tutelage, the kids learn piano and sing songs. "Her voice is very sweet!"

We examine a guzheng, the harp like stringed instrument, and Christina waves a hand in the direction of a snazzy drum set.

Does she like to play the drums?

"I cannot. I am not strong enough," she says with a shrug. "There are other things."

The savory aromas coming from our next stop tell me it's the cafeteria well before we arrive. Beneath the mischievious eyes of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, who grin down from a large-than-life mural on one wall, the residents chatter as they eat a hot, healthy meal.

As I sit down with my tray for another chat with Gauvain, I spot a young boy who looks like he's been hit with a cream pie. It's birthday boy Jia Min, a handsome lad who is scooping up his cake with such glee that it's not all quite making it into his mouth. He's one of the response-challenged kids who doesn't yet have a sponsor, I learn later in the Bethel newsletter. (For as little as 30 euros, or $40, sponsors can fund a child's basic needs and the salary of nanny.) Gauvain posts this weekly update online for donors and friends of Bethel, with amusing insights about residents, programs, and his own family.

There may be news about the farm, where two main fields until recently sported rotating crops of corn and wheat. The current edition features an update on the arts and crafts store Bethel will open in early December, in Beijing's expat-friendly suburb of Shunyi.

"We want to have quality goods here, not second-hand stuff," Gauvain says. There will be artwork made by students, handicrafts made by local knitters and other talented friends of the charity (who enjoy a 60-40 split of the proceeds), and eggs from the farm's 200 chickens. There are farm-grown walnuts, and almond-roca candy that the founders hope will be a holiday money-maker.

"But the important part is that it also creates jobs for our residents," he says. "They will learn how to act in a business situation, with customers, with a cash register, with new responsibility."

Adding layers of ability is what Bethel is all about.

"I like to be a radio host," Christina says. She works a public-address system the staff set up recently, making morning announcements and informing residents about visitors who might be coming that day. Sometimes she interviews her friends.

"It's fun!" she says.