|
Little Girls (there are 80 of them) |
Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence. This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: "Love others as well as you love yourself." Matthew 22:37-40
I do believe that these children have got to be the easiest of our neighbors to love. They all call us "Tia" (aunt) because we are all family to them. They love freely and completely just as Jesus taught us to do.
I thought I would tell you a little about the orphanage today and how it is laid out.
All the children are separated by age and as they get older, by gender. The infants, which there are about 10, are all together. When they are able to walk, they are moved to the toddlers area. There are about 25 toddlers. They stay together until they are about 5 years old. Then the little girls go to the small girls house, the little boys go to the "power toddlers" house (if you have had little boys, you just smiled at that didn't you). I might go see the power toddlers today, haven't made it there yet. When the boys settle a little, they go to the little boys house.
|
In the middle is a dining hall and to the right is the store. Behind all that are where the boys homes are. |
|
Big girls house. They are in the process of buiding as you can see on the left. |
When the genders are separated, they stay separated for the rest of their stay. They see each other on Friday, which is nice as there are many brothers and sisters that only have a chance to be together at this time.
The houses are then defined as: infant, toddlers, power toddlers, little boys, little girls, middle girls, middle boys, big girls and big boys. Each age group has there own kitchen and dining area. They have wood stoves in each of the kitchens so the kids can learn to cook on them. This way, when they leave the orphanage, they will know how to cook as they would outside of the gates.
There is a store here that puts me in mind of a trading post. They sell some prepared meals, drinks, snacks and candy. Many of the missionaries will bring a child or two down to the store to provide them a drink and snack. There is a beautiful chapel where we have worship on Sunday and Wednesday. There is a school, a farm, and a garden. We have electricity, plumbing and drinkable water. The food here is delicious. Everyone here is so kind and helpful and beautiful. There are horses just randomly wondering on the property, there are pigs, goats, cows, a talapia farm, chickens and a garden. There are about 550 children here right now.
The children get up between 4:30-5:00. They get dressed, do their chores and are ready for circle time (worship and devotion) at 6:00 a.m. During the week, most go to school. There are some children that are special needs (cripple, blind, mute, behavior ...) that have special care provided for them.
Some of the chores include: caring for the children, cooking, weed eaters instead of mowing, cleaning, translating, providing devotion and caring for each other.
Keep the children in your prayers, those here are staff, full time missionaries and the part time missionary teams.
As an update on our team. Everyone is doing well. The kids have paired up and are loving paying with the children here. Salem and Mackie are joined at the hip. Matthew has hooked up with Michael's small group which include Carter, Sam, Chandler O and Aiden. These boys, previously mentioned, along with Alan and Kyle got special kudos last night for how hard they worked on the project yesterday. Y'all should be very proud of your boys.
Beth and Erin have had fun playing with the kids. Mostly the toddlers which are quite entertaining to watch. Maddie and Gigi, Brittney, and Rachael have been moving so fast I haven't had a chance to find out where they've gone. Sara and a team she recruits each day have been cooking and serving cookies to the groups of children.
I hope you enjoyed the kids devotion. I think tonight will be Michael's group. ...stay tuned, Christy