Week 14

Week 14

Exciting news of the week is that I have an Internet stick so I am able to get Internet at the baby house! It is so nice to be able to get online for a little while whenever I would like. Praising the Lord for the small things.

A Night Out

A few nights ago we had a night out. It actually started with a day out for a few of us. Candice, Cassie, Jeanette and I all had the day off so we got dropped off at The Glen around 2pm. We did some errand running, went to Mugg and Bean (of course) and just enjoyed the company of each other. We got a new shower curtain for the flat since our old one had a bit too much mold, Cassie and I got Internet sim cards, Candice got a better deal on an Internet stick, and we got a few groceries as well. After work Katy came to meet us for dinner and a movie. We got dinner at Mimmos together and then went over to the Cinema for a movie. She saw Playing for Keeps. It was a pretty good movie and really cheap compared to at home, right around $5! We got a ride home after the movie. It was great to e able to get out of the house for such a long time with each other. Hopefully it can happen again soon!

Kiddie Pools and 12 Toddlers

This past week Cassie, Katy and I were working in the toddler room. We were excited to all be working together and wanted to have a great day with the kids. Candice had the day off and so she joined us for most of the day. We had fun with the kids in the morning and made it to nap time after lunch. We decided that since the weather was hot we would set up the kiddie pools for after naptime. Big boy K stays up a little later than everyone else so he helped us set up the pools and ended up getting a head start with swimming in his clothes. We got everything ready so that the sun could warm up the water during the 3-hour nap. After nap we got the kids up and changed diapers and put on swimsuits. All the kids just wore swimsuits with no diapers since we don’t have swim diapers or anything like them. The kids have done this before so we were hoping it would not be a problem. We changed the first ones and put them in the living room on the tile floor to wait the 10 minutes at the most for the rest of the kids to be ready. Well we had an accident and decided that after one puddle of pee on the floor that Cassie would take the kids outside once they were in their suits. Once everyone was dressed the rest of us made our way outside and divided the kids between the three pools. They all loved it! They splashed and splashed in the water for 30 minutes while the 4 of us watched them and took lots of pictures of their cute wet eyelashes and swimsuit-clad bodies. There were the inevitable few tip overs in the water and kids coming up gashing for breath wide eyed for the half a second that their face was under water but they still loved it. We hope that we are ale to do it again with the kids on the hot days since it was so much fun and a great new activity to break up the everyday same old routine.

Baby H came down to toddlers right as we were getting ready for the pool time so this was her first taste of being a big kid and she enjoyed it. She is not sure about snack time though. We gave the kids their snack outside. The older kids got part of a baby nutrigrain bar and the younger ones had some fruit melt drops. We popped a fruit melt drop in H’s mouth and she pulled a terrible face. She does not have the best track record with food so we were curious to see what would happen. She threw it up along with everything else she had for the day. We quickly got the kids out of the pool and got rid of the water while cleaning up H. She turned out to be fine and I believe that like most every other time is was because she tried to swallow the thing whole instead of chew it. Just goes to prove there is always something going on.

Adoptions

We had two babies leave this week to go to their forever families! It is very emotional for this to happen because we are excited and happy for these babies to leave to their families but it is hard also. We really do develop bonds with the kids and they have our hearts. Baby J and Baby D were the ones who left us this time. Both of them were local adoptions. We also just found out about another baby who will be leaving in March for international adoption. I had the privilege of praying for baby D before she left. The babies are not picked up by their families at the baby house but at the agency that Door of Hope works with. Before they left to go to the agency I was asked to pray for Baby D. I was able to thank God for our time with her and pray for her new family. I asked God to continue to direct her future and grow her up in Him. I then turned her over into His hands and give her a few last kisses before sending her off. It was very neat to be able to be involved in this.

Small Babies

I was able to work in small babies twice this last week and I will a few more times this month. We have 12 small babies. Like the big babies we have big small babies and small small babies. We even have the tiny and itsy bitsy babies. Two of our babies are under 5 pounds and that seemed small to me but then I saw baby D. She is 3 pounds 12 ounces. She is TINY. I was able to hold her and snuggle her many times this week and that was so much fun. This is the schedule that we follow in small babies.

7am- We start the day by bathing or just using a washcloth to wipe the babies down. They bath every 3 days. There are two people that work and we both start doing this.

7:30am- One person continues bathing the babies and the other person starts feeding. We use blankets to prop up the bottles for the babies to eat, since we don’t have enough hands to hold all the babies and all the bottles.

9am- All the babies go back to bed. If they are sleeping they go to bed earlier but they are all in bed by 9 for a nap. We then wash bottles, help hang laundry or help feed the big babies cereal.

10am- Devos and tea time

10:30am- The smaller babies eat again while the big babies keep sleeping or lay in their beds and talk. After they eat they get their diapers changed.

11:30- The big small babies eat while the smaller ones have a little tummy time. The bigger ones get their diapers changed.

12pm- The smaller ones go to bed and we exercise and stretch the bigger ones.

1pm- The bigger ones go to bed and we get the smaller ones up.

1:30pm- The smaller ones eat again and then go back to bed.

2pm- Lunch break

3:30- The bigger ones get up to eat and have diapers changed.

4:30pm- The smaller ones get up to eat and have diapers changed. We take all of their temperatures and complete the end of the day reports on the charts.

5pm- All the babies go to bed for the night and we are done with the day.

All of the smaller babies are on a schedule to eat every 3 hours and the bigger ones are on the 4-hour eating schedule. This means that we are feeding babies all day long!

Latest Happenings at the Baby House

-       We officially have 12 toddlers! Baby H moved downstairs this week and became Big Girl H. 12 is a lot of toddlers!

-       Since we have a few babies leaving there was more moving around again this week. One of the small babies moved to big babies and we got two new small babies. One of the new small babies came from baby house two and she was born on Christmas day. The other baby that we got was the first bin baby of 2013. Two very special babies to join the family here at baby house one!

-       We had visitors this past week at the baby house. It was a family that adopted from Door of Hope over ten years ago. They had their little girl whom they adopted with them and she was beyond beautiful. This was the first time that they saw where their little girl began her life. It was incredible to watch. We pray that this happens with the rest of the babies here today. That they also can one day visit with their families to see where life began for them.

-       If it is possible I continue to fall more in love with these kids everyday. I have loved working with the toddlers. There is one little girl in particular that hold my heart. S is 1 ½ years old and is a tiny little thing. She weighs about 15 pounds and the other day she wore shorts for a 0-3 month old and they fit her fine. Don’t let her size fool you though, she has a big personality. Everyone develops favorite babies while they are here. I do have a few favorites but S is at the top of the list. It is a good thing that I can’t adopt from Door of Hope because the agency they work with does not adopt to the States because I just might come home with her. Please continue to keep this little one in your prayers though as she is HIV positive. I love this little girl and would take her home in a heartbeat!

-       I killed a scorpion in the bathroom in the toddler room right before one of our little guys got to it. I felt pretty powerful after this but then realized that I now have no excuses not to kill spiders at home when asked. If I can kill a scorpion then killing a spider should be no big deal. We will just have to see.

-       All of the kids are suffering from a cold at the moment and some of the toddlers have even thrown up a few times this last week. So far all of the volunteers have escaped this and we hope that is able to continue. Prayers for continued health for everyone would be great.

Latest Happenings in the Flat

-       We continue to kill bugs everyday. Most of them are beetles or big weird fly things. We also sweep up our fair share of ants on a daily basis. I mean they are not scorpions or crazy big spiders, though we have seen both, but I am looking forward to leaving these guys behind in 3 months.

-       We are still watching our movies almost every night but we have also changed it up by watching some TV series that we recently received or that Candice has on her Terabyte hard drive. Our current favorites are Dawson’s Creek and Gilmore Girls.

-       The first one of us has gotten sick. Candice was not feeling well and on her day off Candy came and took her to see a doctor from her church. She came back with medication for tonsillitis, bronchitis, and another infection. She was given about 8 different medications for all of this! Some of them are ones that she should just take her whole time here and others are to make her better now. Thankfully the rest of us have not gotten sick even though the kids continue to pass a runny nose around also. 

-       Alyssa is here so we now have 6 volunteers! She is from Texas. It has been fun to add to the group and to continue to meet people from all over the world. This has only upped the number of places that I would like to travel to now.

-       We are praising God that more of the car situation has been figured out and talked through. It came to our attention that the car was never supposed to be a volunteer car. It was to be used by the volunteers that lived off site so that they could get to work. Since we are all living at the baby house it was not needed any more. There have been some conversations and more people continue to step up to help with rides. We are also being encouraged by many to continue to ask for rides as they feel it is important for us to continue to explore Joburg. We are making our list of places that we would like to get to and trying to find days that work for us to get out. Prayers about this whole situation are continuing to be answered and we praise God for that.

-       We had an exciting Friday night by ordering food out. We got KFC delivered to the baby house for dinner. It is a pretty big deal to do something like this for us. We talk about it all day long and just get so excited for something out of the ordinary, even if it is only KFC being delivered for dinner.

We are a third of the way through February already! This means that I am in South Africa for only about 11 more weeks or less than 80 days! The time is going to fly. As the number of days is getting smaller I have a few prayer requests. Many people are curious as to what I will do when I get back home, I am curious of this as well. I have started to search for jobs and such. Please pray that God continues to open doors for me, and that His plan is revealed. Please also start to pray for the transition back home. This is something that we talk about a lot here among the volunteers. I am so excited to be back home but I know that things will not be the same. I have changed in many ways here and most of the time I will not be able to see and explain these changes but I know they have taken place. Home has also changed. You may or may not know that but I am not going to be going back to the place I left. You all had 6 months that I was not there as well. I know that there will be culture shock and the sense of freedom, while nice will be overwhelming at times I am sure. I also know that I will long for the community that I have developed here. The girls here are the only ones who know what the past 6 months was like for me and sometimes that will be all I want. I am really starting to prayer for the transition back and I would love it if you could join me.

Sending my love and a kisses from the babies your way,

Emily

P.S. If you have not liked Door of Hope on facebook be sure to do so. They have posted pictures recently that I have been tagged in and there are many different photo albums that you can look at on the page.