In Need of Shoes

As I sat down to write today's blog, I noticed that this post is my 200th post!  I am just amazed at the amount of time over the years that God has allowed for me to spend down here.  I am thankful for the guidance our family has had in managing our finances so that these trips are possible, I am thankful for family back home that help with the care of our smaller children who are not yet able to come down, and I am very thankful for friends and family who have been so encouraging over the years as well.

This morning we headed to the medium boys' house once again for circle.  Alina decided to join us today because she said that the boys are less "touchy" and she just needed that break.  A girl from the Alabama team led the devotions and I helped an older boy to do the translating when he'd get stuck.  Then the girl and another man from the team took individual pictures of the boys with a Polaroid camera.  I have never seen a camera like this.  It's a new age take off of the old Polaroids that immediately spit out the photo, only it's a digital Polaroid with a printer right inside the camera; and the photo that comes out can be touched (without any finger prints getting on it) and bent instantly.  They told me that all of the colors are in the photo paper itself, and each piece of photo paper costs about $.20.  We were all just amazed at this camera!

We walked the medium boys to breakfast and then headed to the tienda to see what they had to offer for breakfast...on the menu was listed 'desayuno tipico'.  It consisted of 2 tortillas, eggs, beans, butter, sausage, an avocado slice, and fried plantains.  It was Noah's first experience with fried plantains and he wasn't too thrilled with them, but ate them all.

Alina and Noah at the tienda for breakfast 

Breakfast plate: Tortillas, Eggs, Sausage, Avocado, Butter, Beans, Fried Plantains

After breakfast we walked the medium boys to school and Noah sat with them and chatted.  I noticed that the majority of the medium boys had shoes that were ripped in multiple places.  I later found out that a huge shipment of shoes had been sent down just a couple of months prior, but that the storage facility at the orphanage underwent a series of nightly robberies and ALL of the shoes were taken.  This just breaks my heart to see the boys walking around in shoes like this.  I'm not sure how many of my friends in the States would be able to help, but if so...the boys are in need of shoes in sizes children's 4 through adult 8.  I've noticed that the boys go through shoes and wear them out a LOT faster than the girls because they also have their chores around the farm as well.  If you are able, please check out how to send donations by clicking on this link:  Orphanage Emmanuel Donations.  I have sent items to Dr. Reynolds numerous times, and they do arrive on the semi shipment container here.

This is what many of the shoes look like in the medium boys house

Noah sitting in line at school with the medium boys, waiting for classes to begin

While the children were waiting for school to begin, it began to rain.  Many times the rain only lasts 5-15 minutes here during the rainy season (which we are in right now).  Alina came to grab me to take a picture of the rainbow over by the farm that formed when the rain stopped.

Rainbow over the farm

When the kids went into school, we headed to the biblioteca (library) to talk to Karen about the reading program with the children that Andi had wanted me to help out with.  She asked that I come back around 10:20 which was recess time for the children and she would have a list of children for me and be able to chat with me at that time...so we headed to the office to chat with Sarah about sizing the children.  She had all of the materials printed out to get started, and suggested we begin with the baby and toddler house...so we headed to the toddlers and found them out in the yard playing.  A few toddlers who recognized us from last year (Giselle and Jefferson) helped to bring each toddler over to be measured.  The measuring went very quickly.  There were a few toddlers that were in preschool, but we figured we'd catch them at lunch time.  We headed back to the school to get the list of children that we would be working with during the day in reading, and to grab a few reading books and take a few notes.  Then we used the time in between recess and lunch to head back to the baby house and measure the babies.

When it was lunch time, we headed to the comedor to finish measuring the toddlers.  There are still a few big girls on the toddler list who live in the toddler house and are responsible for the toddlers, but we figured that it would be too embarrassing for them to take their measurements in the dining hall in front of others, so we will be making a special trip to the toddler house to measure them.  For the most part, the toddler house is done.

We spent the afternoon in the special needs yard and measured some of the power toddlers that weren't in school and some small boys.  After supper, we headed to the soccer field by the school so that Alina and Noah could play soccer with the big girls.  Noah had been wanting to play soccer against Claudia ever since he heard that she was the best soccer player.  Although Noah is NOT a soccer player, he did score 3 goals!  When the game ended around 6pm, we walked back to our room for the evening.  It does get pretty dark around 6pm, so we settled down and Noah wrote in his journal about his day while Alina drew pictures on paper before we went to sleep for the night.