It's the small things that make life so spectacular

This past week the children have been so beautiful, it’s blown me away to see such gentle, caring and loving hearts from these kids in so many situations.

On Saturdays the older children go to a HIV/AIDS support group, for going each child receives 5,000 shillings (which is a decent amount of money) to pay for transport and a snack, so Auntie Els buys all the children Soda afterwards. This weekend and lunch time both me a Rachelle were told by the children to go and get cups and they each poured a some of their coke into our cups until we had a full cup each! Now 1. As a 6 or even 12 year old I wouldn’t have thought about sharing my drink with an adult and 2. If I got a treat once a week I wouldn’t want to spare any of it! But these children willing shared out of loving hearts!

In the past couple of weeks a few more westerners has arrived on base and we have been trying to work more with Apio, she has experienced extreme trauma, neglect and abuse, and as a result is so underdeveloped, where other children her age are starting to walk she cant even sit! However this week she not only managed to sit on her own for a little bit, she also started to use her arms to pull herself up, and even by herself from a half lying down position she managed to sit up all by herself! This is so much progress because she is so weak and previously would just be propped up in a chair! This week she even took her cup from my hands and tried to feed herself although she wasn’t strong enough to old her cup for a long time her determination to progress and the smile on her face when she succeeded was nothing short of beautiful!

We’ve also been trying to get the kids off the veranda more and so we’ve played in the swings and on the trampoline lots this week. However Rose went from peacefully sleeping in the swing to projectile vomiting! I had to lift her out of the swing, getting vomit over me and the take her and wash her off which was easier said than done due to the lack of water. Now that doesn’t sound like a spectacular event, but for me it said a lot, these children are innocent and helpless, and the work here shows caring hearts off the Aunties who clean up vomit, diarrhoea, and work their butt off for these children. There’s such a beauty in the way that God breaks your heart for what breaks his! 

Us girls had a nail painting sesh! They were so excited by a small thing, that made them feel spectacular! We had hour of fun choosing the colours, painting, decorating their nails and stopping Rafael eating the bottles of nail polish! The children weren’t bothered about perfection, they were just excited about having something that was them, that was individual and they could be proud of! Something I feel like we’ve lost, it’s all about perfection and opinions for us in the west, we almost stopped caring about our own dreams!

The outward beauty of the children was shown by a massive photo taking morning, which was so much fun as we thought of lots of crazy poses and generally loved on each other!

Yesterday Julius (one of the babies) got to go home, to his young, widowed, innocent father who clearly didn’t have a clue how the look after a baby! This boy has the opportunity to bring joy and healing to his father’s life, but he’s gonna need a lot of prayer that his father has wisdom and help in bringing him up!

In other news, 2 very important girls have entered and re-entered my life this week, Rachelle (Rachel) is my new room-mate, she is Dutch but her English is amazing and we’ve already spent a lots of time laughing and getting sunburnt! She’s already thrown up all over the floor, so she sure is my type of girl! Haha! Double trouble were reunited this week and Becca arrived in Soroti, our team work has already gone to use and we have the kids making a wall display of Noah’s Ark!

Becca and Beatrice enjoyed stabbing my toe with a needle to see how many different liquids they could get out of it! (No I don’t know what I’ve done, but it hurts and is red and swollen right next to my nail, any ideas?)

And I was awake for a while last night chasing the world’s biggest mosquito round my net, I haven’t worked out their role in making life spectacular yet! However I am now fully recovered from my Malaria, Thank you for your prayers.