Others, Lord, yes others!!

As I was praying last night I realized that hello, Laura, the purpose of your visit might not be to affect your life, but instead the whole point is about others; serving others, loving others, guiding and directing others. Its about loving on abandoned children at Rafiki and at the other places you serve at, its about giving all the workers a break from having to sweep and mop one day or from having to do 5 loads of laundry. Its about holding an orphaned baby and tenderly feeding it a bottle, its about teaching street kids about the love of Jesus. Its about helping the staff and other missionaries at Rafiki in their journey. Its about teaching some kids how to tell time, or about The Butterfly Song, or helping Auntie Monica peel potatoes, or even reaching readers of my blog to re-assess their faith and commitment to Him.

I love all the service I do at home through 5th Sunday, the program I help lead at my church, and feeding my leftovers in center city Philly to the homeless, or designing a home for Habitat for Humanity, so why wouldn't God bless me with 3 months of constant service to others so I can enjoy it without other distractions of work, friends and family. This mission is not about me and how I change, but about others!

Speaking of others... you also probably want to hear more about the children:

After school and rest time today it immediately started raining which meant no playtime outside, which typically means we've got kids with way too much energy on our hands. But luckily it didn't seem that way, after folding their clothes and putting them away (I know 5 year olds folding their clothes!!) they listened attentively through two books, then sat in a circle and went one by one telling me their favorite baby animals, and then, they did the cutest thing (and I wished I had my camera to capture it) but 12 kids put their feet towards the middle of the circle said one to three and fell back kicking their cute little feet in the air. After some serious and focused coloring I let them have a movie, a treat, because I rarely let them watch movies when I'm running the show because I'd rather be stimulating them in some way like reading books, playing games, etc.

A couple of cute things happened with some of the children recently:

I'm teaching Emma to dress himself and how to pee properly, he usually ends up with pee on his clothes, but while he's putting on his final article of clothing I start to walk away and he pleads, "Wait for me, wait for me please?" How could I not!!?!!

Esther was in a deep sleep during rest time and all the kids were called to get up but she was so sleepy she slept through and then was rudely awakened by the kids putting their clothes away, she stumbled up and couldn't do anything but stand there, so we had a lovely cuddle while she woke up. Jerom was the same on Tuesday, I love cuddling them.

Carol is the only child with any amount of hair and two of the aunties took it out of twists the other day and now she has a mini-fro, I love it!

Joel came home from school and told me he's learning how to tell time at school, guess I was a week ahead of the curve on that one, I'm glad he's got that mastered, he's such a perfectionist it takes forever to get through homework!

All the kids stood up one by one today to tell a story, and they start them always with 'Once upon a time' and then everybody repeats 'time, time, time', Oscar's stories have all been about Moses the past two weeks, I'm glad he learned it so well.

Fauziya is the eldest girl and she is certainly blossoming into quite the helper, don't get me wrong, she definitely can be an instigator as well, but I love it when she comforts a child or offers to help. Her and Annet even helped peel potatoes the other day!

 

When I first came only the 3 youngest would respond to you telling them that you loved them with 'I love you', now about 3/4 of them do it...they are getting it, they are loved!