Monday, July 8th

Monday, July 8^th

“I just don’t have the patience for him today.”

Those are the words I said to one of my teammates after a little boy ripped a craft out of another girl’s hands.

They’re just so mean to one another. They hit. They kick. They take things from each other. It’s survival of the fittest. It truly is. This is reality for these kids. Of course, some are worse than others. Some are very helpful and caring for one another. But today, he was not being pleasant.

And today my patience was wearing thin. I was drained from having to control children.

We are all so exhausted by the end of the day. By the afternoon, for that matter.

And we get to leave.

Can you imagine how those nannies feel? They are there, day in and day out, morning to evening caring for those kids. We’re here for two weeks and then leave. We leave for lunch, and we leave at night. We get a break. They do not.

I just have so much respect for them. Joy tells me that she is sleepy almost daily, but you know what her attitude is? Joyful. She smiles all day, she truly loves those kids, all day. She’s truly an inspiration.

You know how many infants are in one room? Twelve. You know how many nannies are in there to care for them all? One. And that poor lady runs around like crazy doing so much. All day. She feeds them all, she changes them all, she mops, cleans, and washes clothes. All in a room with no air conditioning, nonetheless.

I will just say, I have such respect for them.

Anyways, on to the day.

My alarm clock went off this morning and I was so tired, so I hit the snooze button and slept through breakfast. I was able to talk to my family today, so that was a lot of fun.

When we got to the orphanage, we walked down the hall to put our stuff in the baby playroom. As I passed the door to where the older kids are, I saw sweet Dora standing there with silent tears running down her face. So I stopped and gave her a hug and some kisses. As soon as I bent down all the nannies saw her and tried to get her to cheer up for me. She was in no such mood, so I just picked her up and carried her to the playroom. After putting my stuff down I grabbed her and tickled her a bit and swung her around which made her laugh a little bit. I picked her up and held her in front of the air conditioner (because at this point we’re all dripping with sweat), and she just giggled. She was like, “ahhhh”. She loved it.

She then took my hand and we ran down to the big kid room. She was so excited to have us there. I gave little Lena a big hug, too.

Denis and Taylor in their new shirts!

Kathryn brought some tshirts with her school’s football name on it and she gave them to two of the boys, Taylor and Denis. She wore hers today, so I showed them that they were wearing the same shirt and Denis didn’t want to put it on. One of the nannies asked if it was a girls shirt, and I said “ohh no! IT’s a boy’s. She’s just wearing a boy’s shirt today.” And then the boys put it on. Haha. It was kind of funny.

We took all the kids downstairs, in the elevator Lena kept copying everything that I would say. She’s so smart. I told her to say, “Good morning” and she repeated it back to me, clear as day.

When we got outside Amy and I started blowing up balloons and giving them to the kids to play with. They thoroughly enjoyed that. The simplest things impress these kids. We gave one to Lena and she just shrieked with joy and began jumping up and down.

Little Ray loved the balloons the most. By the end of the morning he had a whole collection of about 6 or 7 balloons all tied to each other. He would prance around and show everyone his balloons and then smile SO big when we acknowledged them.

Julia pulled out her balloon animals and started making those. The kids really enjoyed that.

Julia making animal balloons

 

Dora with her balloon

 

Taylor was found crying at one point, and no one knew what was wrong with him. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him thoroughly upset. He was bawling his eyes out. Turns out all he wanted to do was help Julia blow up the balloons. We thought he wanted the balloon animal, but turns out he wanted to just help blow them up. So we let him do that for awhile.

Lena blowing up balloons

After Taylor was done blowing up balloons, I filled in for him. Lena came over and she wanted to blow them up so I held the balloon on the pump while she did it. She thought it was the funniest thing. I blew the air from the pump in her face, and she loved that, too.

Charlie asked Joy to get a picture with her, so I took it for them. After I took the picture Joy asked to see it. Once she saw it she pointed to her belly and started acting like she was fat. Which is not AT ALL true. I made a face saying she wasn’t. She lifted her shirt up a little bit as if saying, “Oh please, look at this.” And so I lifted mine up a little to show her my little belly fat, too. She made a face at me. So I looked over at the workout equipment and pointed at it to her and kind of motioned that we needed to work out. So I went over there and started working out, and she just laughed at me. I love her so much.

I sat down on a chair outside and was just observing for a little bit when Cameron, a little boy with down syndrome, came up and stood next to me. So I started rubbing his back while we both kind of looked around for a little bit. These kids just look for any kind of physical touch. He eventually came and sat down in my lap and put his head on my shoulder as I rubbed his back.

After the kids got tired of playing with balloons, we took them all inside for a craft. When we moved the table to the center of the room, they all started to get so excited knowing that we were doing a craft with them.

We brought out foam flowers and some foamy stickers to put on them. I showed Lena how to peel the backs of the stickers off and stick them on her flower, and from there she went on. Some of the stickers were a half circle that had layers that pulled apart like a rainbow almost. I took one and put it on the outside of a pedal on her flower, and she immediately copied me and put the rest of them on the pedal. She’s so smart. She’s so particular about her crafts. I’m telling you, if she had Pintrest, she’d be all over it. :)

And that’s when a little boy came by and took her flower she was working so hard on. She cried and cried. And that’s when I got upset. There were lots of things that I saw him do this morning that frustrated me. But that was the final straw.

We got it back from him and Lena finished her flower. Everyone took the kids back upstairs to the room, but she and I stayed for a bit longer because she wanted to finish. She’s that particular, haha.

After that I took her back upstairs. We had a few minutes left there, so a few of us went to check on the babies. I went to pick up my sweet Nathan, and he was happy as ever. Julia went to see Charlotte (the blue heart baby). She was on the IV and she noticed that her hand was all puffed up. The doctor that put her on the IV didn’t put the needle in right. She must’ve missed her vein or something, and all the fluid was building up in her hand and arm. It was so sad. I ran to grab Emily, who volunteers as an EMT, to see if she could help or something. As I was walking back Lena ran out from her room and gave my legs a big hug. She’s so sweet. I gave her one back and she giggled.

Elyssa, Danielle, and I had dropped off laundry yesterday, so we went to pick that up on our way back to the hotel. The lady that took our laundry yesterday wasn’t there, and it was a man. He had no idea what he was doing. He was such a man. Watching him fold his clothes and figure out whose clothes was whose was funny. It took him forever, though.

Elyssa's ice cream

After that, Kathryn, Elyssa, Charlie, Danielle and I all went to KFC to get some soft serve ice cream. Only $0.50 USD for a cone. Not too bad. It was literally the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted in my life, haha. We were all SO excited about it. We’re not used to cold things anymore, that it shocked me at first. But I can’t complain. It was SO good.



After lunch we went to the orphanage and played with the babies.

I went into the baby room to grab Nathan and then brought him back to the play room. I sat in there and played with him for a little bit. We spent some time in there with the babies. Sweet Sadie, a little baby with special needs, kept stretching like crazy. We call her our little cheerleader because she’s so flexible and stretches all the time. She always looks at her fingers like she’s looking at her fingernails like they’re so pretty. She’s such a little princess. She’s so funny.

 

Amy, Julia and I took Steve (our translator/guide) to talk to Helen (the nanny that deals with the children's paperwork) about the heart babies. We had a very good conversation with Helen about them. We were careful with our words, telling them that we believed they were doing a good job, but we would like to help. We asked about a few options that we’re exploring right now, and they seemed very open to it. So PLEASE pray for those babies. Believing that God will work some miracles there.

Getting love from Kathryn

 

After that we spent some more time in the baby room. I clipped Minnie’s finger nails because they were so long. Minnie is a sweet little preemie, who is probably 2-3 months old, and has down syndrome. As I was clipping them she fell asleep. She’s such a sweetheart.

After that I found Nathan again and sat him in my lap and rocked him back and forth. He eventually fell asleep in my lap. He was so tired from working so hard on sitting up and holding his head up. Such a big boy.

Steve came into the play room and announced, “Okay, time to go now.” So we all went to bring our babies back. I managed to keep Nathan asleep when I put him down. On our way out the nanny in the baby room stepped out to wave goodbye, and I said goodbye and rubbed her arm on the way out and smiled at her. She turned around and smiled really big. The simplest things can mean so much to people. I have to remember that. I hope they know that we think they’re doing a good job.

Anyways, today I’ll just ask that you pray for the heart babies. I’m working on that, believing for something big to come from that. The Lord is sovereign over every situation. He knows what He is doing with those babies. I just pray that we can help them. I’m trying in every way that I know how.

 Also pray for our team. We’re a little over halfway through the week and we’re getting tired and worn down. Pray for strength and endurance. Also pray for the nannies. If this is how we feel, I can only imagine how they feel at the end of the day.