August 10th - Measuring the Children

Today was the first day we got to participate in circle since we got here late Friday morning. Circle is a morning devotion where the children begin by singing songs and then get a small message for the day. We had missed circle by a few hours on Friday and there isn´t circle on Saturdays & Sundays. Jen & I went to the little girls circle and Andrés headed to the older boys. They sang songs in English and Spanish and a few in Danish. Then Merethe spoke about opening your heart and listening to God.

After breakfast, Jen & I helped the volunteer team measure the kids to post their sizes on the internet for their sponsors - in case their sponsors would like to buy them clothes for Christmas. At first, the team started taking all measurements for each child individually, so when one child´s measurements were done, then they moved on to the next. They had about 6-8 people just standing around doing nothing (not to mention there are well over 400 children at the orphanage who needed sizing done). I came up with an "assembly line" type of system so we could get the kids through faster...minimizing the amount of time they´d be missing class, allowing all volunteers to participate and stay busy measuring, and also maximizing the number of children we got sized per hour. Jen and another volunteer would call a name of a child and that child would get a post-it note with their name on it. They´d come to me first and I´d measure their height (in inches and centimeters) and write it on their paper, then they´d go to the next volunteer for another measurement, and keep moving until their final measurement (shoe size) at the end. The lady measuring feet kept the post-it and gave it to a girl who would record it on her long list of students. During the 2 hours we worked yesterday we got all but 2 classes from the 1st grade through the 6th grade (and most grades had 2 classrooms full of students).

After having lunch with the little girls, Jen, Andrés and I went in to town to get a phone card and some groceries. We should be set for the 2 weeks now. We went to bible study at 3pm and Merethe talked about the 10 Commandments, first checking to see how many girls knew all 10, then going on to talk about how the first set of commandments are for God and the 2nd set had been given to honor each other. When bible study was over, Merethe asked if I´d like to lead next Monday´s bible study for the little and medium girls...HOW EXCITING!

The little girls I was in charge of bathing last year remembered me & all the way to supper were begging for me to come and help them take baths once again. After supper, we headed to the older boys soccer activities that were being put on by the volunteer group (since Saturday´s activities were only for the young & medium children). Andrés played basketball in the gym while that was going on.

Jen & I headed back after the soccer activities, but Andrés stayed for a bit to play volleyball with the volunteer team. We made a few calls home and most likely used up an entire phone card doing it, then called it a night.