Big Circle

This morning we woke up and headed to Big Circle at 6am.  I've posted pictures in the past of big circle, but for those who may be reading this blog for the first time, this is where all 534 children of the orphanage come together to sing praises to God and have devotional time.  Big Circle only happens on Fridays, and every other day a little circle is done, which consists of smaller circles outside each of the dorm houses at the orphanage.  For example, there would be a large girls circle outside of their house, a medium girls circle outside of theirs, a small girls circle outside of theirs, and the same for the boys and toddlers.  Big Circle is an opportunity for all to be together and may be the only opportunity for some siblings to see each other.  The toddlers and babies were not present today.

Kelsey and her mom had seen a bunch of T-Shirts at their church which had a big "Orphans No More" caption on them.  They had asked if they could have the t-shirts to ship to the orphanage a few months back and we saw that the little girls (that I've worked with over the years) were wearing them to Big Circle!  Here is a picture (from a distance) of how that looked:

After Big Circle we had breakfast and got briefed for the day.  We split up into different teams - some of the women went to sizing & measuring of the infants and toddlers, I stayed back with a small groups to cut out crafts that were going to be used in the afternoon devotions with the small girls & small boys and to sort through clothing that was going to be donated to the children, and the men went to work on filling in the greenhouse so that cement could be laid next week.  When we finished cutting out the crafts and sorting the clothing, I took the girls with me on a tour of the orphanage.  We passed by the big girls yard, the gymnasium, the girls' volunteer house, the school, the church, the main office, staff housing, the farm, and when we came to the greenhouse we saw the men hard at work (and VERY sweaty), so I took a picture of that:

Over by the greenhouse is a tilapia farm and more staff housing.  We came around the back and saw the dental clinic and the power toddlers house and then the girls decided to take the "longer" route back to the team house, which passed by the babies and toddler houses.  As we went into the baby house, I saw Brandy so introduced her to Kelsey and Bekah.  She let me know that she had seen Alina in the morning and thought Alina looked REALLY familiar, but couldn't quite place how she knew her.

When we came back it was time for lunch and another briefing of how the afternoon was to play out.  I had to take a group to the special needs yard to play with the children and then all of the women headed to the small and medium girls houses (over 150 of them) to take their measurements.  Measuring is done both for the government records and for sponsors back in the States and Denmark (and any other countries that are involved) to know what sizes their children are in case they'd like to buy them clothing for Christmas.  After measuring it was time for supper.

When dishes were done and the dining hall cleaned, we had a team meeting where we got prepped on the events of tomorrow.  After this, John (one of the adults from the MD team) mentioned that they would be giving beads again this year.  I may need to wait a couple of days until I get the hang of this to explain the beads, but Alina gave me a yellow bead for demonstrating leadership through this entire process.  Bob got a red bead for showing love in cleaning up even though it began raining and others headed back to the team house.  There were many beads given.  Again, I'll try to get the hang of how this works and explain in a future posting.  When the meeting was done, the teens headed to the "awesome room" and played "4 on the Couch".  It's a hard game to describe, but involves a lot of concentration.  I watched for a bit, but then decided to turn in for the night.  Perhaps I'll play tomorrow!