Week 23
Days Off
The first three days of this week I had off. I still don’t
do much on my days off. With Internet at the baby house now I will spend a
little bit of time online. I also try and set up skype dates with people at
home. I was able to skype with some great friends and family on those days and
did some blog reading. I also spent time reading and just doing nothing while
itunes played. When the toddlers were outside I went to visit with them for a
little while because they are just too darn cute not to. Also Toddler K just
yells my name when he sees me walk past the window and I can’t say no. I have
also started to go through my pictures and put them in different folders to
print off right when I get home. This has been really overwhelming to say the
least! I have so many pictures and love so many of them. Needless to say when
you see me I will have loads of pictures on me to show off of my kiddos. Lazy
days off are the best!
Small Babies
This week I spent the week working in small babies. Right
now small babies is a pretty easy schedule. Babies are either fed every three
hours or every four hours. Right now all of the babies are on the four-hour
schedule except for my baby M, he is a three-hour baby. This makes for a pretty
easy day with most of it spent by the babies sleeping. There can be lots of
down time but when they are up, everyone is up. It has been funny because when
I have been skyping with friends I say how easy it is to take care of 10
newborn to 4 month olds. Wonder if this will ever come back to bite me in the
butt one day! One of the small babies was born without an anus (an opening for
his poo to come out of). He has had surgery to form an anus that exits near his
stomach right now and to form an anus in the proper spot. Soon all of that will
be joined together and he will be a normal baby with a normal bum! For right
now all of his poo collects in a bag off of his stomach. This week one of the
aunties taught me how to clean and change his bag. I am practically a nurse
after this lesson! The day after my poo bag lesson I got my first chance to
clean the bag. Baby L is a great baby and for that I am thankful, there are
some not so pleasant parts of this whole procedure for him but he is a champ
and just goes with it. I was successful and he was good to go for the morning!
This week I also dressed the babies is some cute outfits for a little photo
shot. I thought that this would help our day along and I wanted some nicer
photos of these little ones. Needless to say they turned out adorable and many
of them will be on my walls at home very soon!
Birthday Parties
This week we celebrated 4 of our big babies 1st
birthdays! 4 of them turn one year old this month. One of them, baby A, is
going to be adopted soon so we had to have the party at the beginning of the
month so he could be part of it. It was a fun celebration of these four little
lives. We sang happy birthday and ate some sweet treats. It is always so funny
to watch the baby’s reactions when they try cake for the first time. Many of
them pull a face but usually end up liking it at least a little bit. We also
had the typical party foods of marshmallows and cheese curls and juice. I am
really going to miss birthday parties here when I am at home. We can’t wait to
see what God has in store for them in this next year.
Two New Volunteers
We got two new volunteers this week. Both of them have been
here before. They came together both times. They will be staying for 6 weeks.
They are from the England. It will be fun to get to know them the next two
weeks.
Family Pictures
On Saturday Cassie and I both had off and decided to take
some family pictures. Our family pictures include us and our favorite babies.
Cassie and I both dressed up and put the kids in nicer clothes to take
pictures. I had my favorite babies S, S and M in my pictures. Cassie had her
favorites L, T, S, L and A. We were able to get some really nice pictures of
each other and our babies. It was lots of fun and really crazy trying to get so
many kids to look at the camera and smile. Most of my favorites are the candid
shots that we got during the process. Love having the opportunity to get some
nicer pictures with my favorites.
The Countdown!
I am so excited
to say that in two weeks I will be boarding an air-o-plane as the kids here
would say! I have LOVED my time here but I am getting pumped to be at home
again. I just miss too many people! I have to believe that I will return to
Africa one day. Maybe back to South Africa and maybe a different country. (I
would like to travel with someone this next time though!) I just don’t feel
done with this beautiful continent. The most asked question of what will I be
doing when I get home has still to be answered yet. I know that God has it
worked out and things will fall into place. For at least the first two weeks I
will be trying to readjust to the time change and a different schedule and
living in a house without 30 babies. One of the other volunteers, Cassie, is
leaving on May 2. It has been great to process going home together. We are
roommates and this week we made a sticky note calendar for our countdown. Each
night before we go to bed we take another sticky note off the cabinets. It is
an exciting time of the day. We really look forward to going to bed because of
this and I am ashamed to say that sometimes we find ourselves curled up in bed
at 8:00pm. To our defense we always read in bed and never get in bed before 8
because that would just be crazy. Please continue to pray for the rest of my
time here and for the transition back in just two short weeks!
Prayer Request
I have mentioned before that one of our babies is in the
hospital to have surgery. He is still in the hospital and this will be going on
3 weeks I think. We pray that he gets better fast and is home soon. We miss his
smiley face and precious giggle. I pray that he is back before I leave so that
I am able to say goodbye to him and get a few more pictures of his sweet face.
We miss you S and pray that you get better fast and come home. We love you so
much baby!
A Few More Rambling Thoughts
This week as I was getting excited to start packing and get
back on that airplane and it felt like time had stopped and I would never be
doing either of those activities, I flashed back to my first week here. I spent
that week in bed not feeling well (bad combination of jet lag and altitude
sickness) and thinking that I was completely nuts that I was going to be here
for 6 months. I looked through the 30 or so printed pictures that I brought of
friends and family at home and cried. I read every page in the calendar of
daily encouragement that so many of you helped to make and cried. I sustained
myself on a diet of bread, apples and water and cried. And finally I turned to
scripture because that was the only thing left to do. I read through Genesis
and Exodus in about 3 days. I cursed the devil and mankind while reading
Genesis for causing this world to fall and that I was sitting I a strange bed
half way around the world from everyone and everything that I loved. It was
during reading Exodus that I realized my life was not so bad. I was only going
to be ‘wandering’ for 6 months and not 40 years. I could do this. And I have!
This week as time stood still and all I wanted to do was get on that airplane I
remembered those same Israelites and the same 40 years they wandered and I also
remembered to when I got here. I had 3 weeks left! I had survived 5 months and
these people survived 40 years. Surely I can make the next 3 weeks and be just
fine. And guess what, we are now at 2 weeks! We are going to make it. This week
I also started to reread the same book that I read when I first got here,
Redeeming Love. It is an incredible story and one that I recommend. This will
be my 3rd or 4th time reading the book. I learn something
new each time and I am excited to see what I learn this time through and what I
can take home with me from the story. So I am kinda reliving my first few weeks
here and I hated those weeks! What a strange thing time can do to us.
Just two weeks now!
Emily
P.S. URGENT PRAYER REQUEST- Please be in prayer for one of our small babies. She
has not been doing well this week and went downhill fast today (Sunday). Two of the
volunteers ended up doing CPR on her while waiting for the ambulance to come. I
was not upstairs for any of this but it has been scary to hear about it from
them. We don’t know anything else right now. We love you baby D. Get better
fast and come home.
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