A Week of Firsts...

This week has been filled with so many new experiences, and today contained one more that I will never forget. We had been anticipating the arrival of a 9 month old baby girl whose young mother had become too sick (with AIDS) to care for her. I ended up being there when the mother brought her daughter to us, and was elected to be the one to bring the baby to its new home and introduce her to her new houseparents and brothers and sisters.
The mother arrived, looking not much older than a child herself, and as she watched the social workers exchange documents and exclaim over how beautiful her daughter was, her face seemed to hold an expression of absolute devastation. I cannot even imagine handing my baby over to strangers, knowing that they would get to witness all of the events of her childhood that I wouldn't live to see. I am so thankful that this mom chose to give her child, who is also infected, the best possible chance at a wonderful life.
As I drove with the baby in my back seat, I prayed aloud for her and her mother. For their lives and their futures. When we arrived at her new home she had fallen asleep in the car (I'd like to think of this as a compliment to my slowly improving South African driving skills, but it probably isn't!). As I took her out of the car she woke up and as her new mom excitedly took her from me a tiny smile passed her lips.
I instructed the houseparents on the 5 different types of medication to be given to this little one each day, and watched as all of the other children excitedly touched her tiny hands and cheeks. While I sat with her on my lap, the three year old girl, who until now had been the baby of the house (we had been a little nervous about how she would respond to being de-throned) climbed up onto the couch next to me and tried to pull the baby onto her lap. As I rested her on her new big sister's legs, she was given a big preschooler-size kiss to the cheek and I knew that they would be just fine. :o)

... It is funny the things that nearly bring me to tears here. Tonight, as I watched one of our older girls play a kids soccer game at church, with all of the other children chanting her name over and over when her turn to play came, she scored and jumped in victory all the way back to the huddle of children who were united against the team of parents. The other children circled around her and cheered. I was so excited to see her so celebrated, knowing that she was the reason that we also have to watch the painful moments of a mother walking away from her infant... the chance for something more, something wonderful, and a chance to know that their lives are worth celebrating.

What a day!

The Unimaginable...

(This photo is one I took on my first visit to South Africa.)



I cannot find the words to describe what I witnessed yesterday. Two other staff members and I went to visit a home we had heard about in Illovo (an impoverished area near downtown Johannesburg). When we arrived at the house, we were greeted by a woman who estimated that she had 29 children, mostly infants and toddlers, living in her three bedroom home. She wasn’t even sure how many children were in her home! We could smell the house as we walked through the dogs and mud that filled the yard. Once inside, the smell was nauseating. Three babies sat in infant chairs on top of the counter and a little boy, maybe a year and a half old, sat on the dirty and broken floor staring blankly – not a toy in sight.
The poor woman herself looked just exhausted as she had only that morning been released from the hospital with Hepatitis. Her skin and eyes were so yellow. As she toured us around the house she opened the door to a bedroom in which 5 babies laid in cribs and 6 more with laying on the floor, again with not a single toy. Just left to lay there with the door closed. Inside one of the cribs was a set of premature twins that she said were three months old. They were smaller than most newborns. From that room she took us into a second room filled with wall to wall cribs – sitting inside each was a toddler. One of the toddlers was an older sister of the twins, named Rachel, maybe a year and a half old, who was lying in a crib covered in scabies. The woman touched Rachel's leg to show us her sores and she just SCREAMED. She is such a beautiful baby girl. There were older children in the yard, well above school age, in the middle of the morning on a Wednesday...
The cribs themselves were just filthy. As we left the bedrooms we walked past a baby boy, maybe only 9 months old, who had thrown up all over himself and the floor, and no one had even noticed until we walked by. We are going to try to sort things out with her (she has all of the children there without a license of any kind, no record of who they are - so that we can take as many as possible as quickly as our homes can manage I think. We so strongly feel thazt we must get them out of there. They've all now probably been exposed to Hepatitis as well. The home had a stench that made all of us ill, and a roach crawled across the table in front of us as we sat talking with her.
It is so frustrating to see something like that, where someone believes they are doing something good for these children, when so clearly they are just sustaining the same misery that these kids probably came from. I cannot fathom how that kind of situation is acceptable to anyone, or why she has waited so long to ask for help. I am so thankful that she is willing to give us so many of the little ones. They are human beings being treated far worse than animals...
My heart is just breaking for them to know that they are there even as I write this… and to know that there are well over a million more just like them in South Africa. I am praising God for the health and safety that our children live in our homes. We left the home wondering aloud the fastest ways in which more homes could be opened. The families who have partnered with us are part of God’s miracles for these incredible kids!

African Rain

I am nearing the end of my first full day in South Africa. It has been so wonderful to be here already. I am living in a house with six little girls, the oldest being only 4. Their house mom is a hero! Only 10 minutes ago I was upstairs with them for their "quiet time" before bed. It was amazing to see chilren so small gather on the floor in front of their mom, and sit quietly as she read to them from Genesis (a children's version!). She then asked who was going to join the choir and four tiny hands shot up. The four girls then lined up and a fifth (only one year old) joined them because they were "missing their alto". :o) They sang "Jesus Loves Me" - though I must admit that the one year old didn't hold up the alto section very well! As soon as the song was finished all 6 kneeled in a circle to pray. The four year old and three year old volunteered to lead and immediately began talking to God over one another (I'm pretty sure I heard the lyrics to "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" in there somewhere.)

As I drove home tonight after a wonderful day of visiting with children and staff and watching a thunder and lightning summer rain storm out the window of my new office, the most beautiful rainbow arched across the sky.

It was a pretty perfect day. :o) Hope all is well with you!

The Goodbye Girl

The goodbyes have begun. I leave for South Africa one week from today and have, up until now, just been trying to get everything done here - moving out of my apartment, training my job replacement, getting visas approved and laptops ordered. But now most of that is done and all that's left to do is begin to say goodbye, my least favorite thing. I have allowed myself to live in a somewhat strong dose of denial for the past few weeks, being able to say that I wasn't leaving until "next month". Now "next month" has come, seemingly out of nowhere. SCPC's high school group had a send off of sorts for me on Wednesday night left me realizing that, no matter how excited I am to be going to SA, I will be leaving a pretty incredible community of people behind. I have been trying to turn that sadness into a feeling of overwheming blessing - each person that I have to say goodbye to, each one of my small group girls whose tears broke my heart, is a person who I am blessed to have in my life. I tried a similar method (with varying degrees of success) to ward off the frustration I was feeling at the overwhelming amount of STUFF I had to pack up by considering each and every object in my apartment as proof of God's grace in my life to provide for all of my needs.

I am writing this morning to try and become more present in the fact that I am leaving the people I love in this place. Until now I've allowed myself to remain somewhat detatched from the emotions associated with going to South Africa, probably largely out of self-preservation. But, beginning today, as I pray with friends and family at a goodbye breakfast and then meet up for lunch with Sarah (who I won't see again before I leave) I want to enter into more of the loss that is coming this week. Don't get me wrong, I am beyond excited to be going to live in South Africa surrounded by children who have my heart in a country that I love. But I also want to make sure that in the midst of that excitement, the value of the community of people I have in my life here is not minimized.

I have been telling myself, "It will be just like when you were living in Seattle except that you'll be home to visit even more often (every 6 months)." But I have started to remember too how isolating it felt to come home from Seattle sometimes. I remember it being as though I was trying to hold onto two selves. There was the person that everyone in San Clemente knew me as, and still expected me to be when I came home And then there was the person I was becoming in Seattle, shaped by people and experiences there that I found so hard to articulate in such a way as to help others understand when I came home. The two worlds that I will be holding now will be even more in contrast against one another and I really need to be praying more for how I will learn to be at peace in both.

Okay, well, that turned into more than I was expecting... and now I better sign off before I make myself late for this goodbye breakfast! :o)