a day of adventures

Every day has been an adventure from beginning to end, especially yesterday.

Yesterday, I woke up this morning feeling sickly. So, our whole room made the sacrifice to not wake up at 5:30 a.m. to go to worship and to sleep in until 7 a.m. Yes, I said SLEEP IN until 7 a.m. But, we met for breakfast around 7:30 a.m. Then, we volunteered to work in the clinic helping around 30 kids who needed more medical attention than we can give. Three of them ended up going to the hospital. Two of those three have the measles, which is like chicken pox and is as common here as the flu in the U.S. Those two will be on medication for the next month, and I will be ointment-ing them until I leave (that’s my specialty in the clinic). The other child has sores on his hands and are so infected that it made his hand swell up and was hot. So, he will be taking four pills a day to hopefully get better. In the clinic, my main job was helping the nurses from the Visiting Orphans team that is here. Also, I lathered up the kids whose skin was cracking with lotion.

After working in the clinic for around 2 hours, we got to play on the field with the kids. I hung around with John, Dennis, Sarah, Helen, and others. We were able to play on the playground we built last year and doing that was very rewarding. The slides were fun to play on because I got to slide down them with my babies in my arms.

We also went to Haven on Hope yesterday. Haven of Hope has 39 kids ages ranging from 1 year to 12 years old. I held a sweet little one who was around 2 years old for a while then was handed a little girl who was around 8 years old. She is new to HOH, so she did not speak a word to me or to anyone else for that matter. But, the way she wanted love was by me just holding her (on my hip, standing up) and being with her. She got a little heavy after 15 minutes, but I didn’t want to put her down because she needed love by physical touch. She was so precious and we have to opportunity to see her tomorrow, so hopefully I will be able to be the physical touch of love she needs for tomorrow.

When we got back to Fiwagoh, we had dinner then we helped out in the clinic again before (and during) worship. We told the kids with really bad wounds to come back that night and so they did. We thought it would only take a minute, but lots of kids came and so we were in the clinic during the whole worship service. We saw such great improvements and we were able to tell the team that is coming this weekend what we need at the clinic. Please pray for each and every child that comes in the clinic because some of the kids need more than medical attention. One sweet boy has a very low immune system, so he always has sores all over his body. The team coming is thankfully bringing some multivitamins for him to help boost his immune system.

That is what I have been doing for the past two days. We work in the clinic in the morning and night and visit different orphanages in the afternoon. Today, we went on a nature walk instead of playing in the field after the clinic. The nature walk was 1.5 hours long, and some of the VO team members were surprised to hear that was the short walk. The kids love walking, so we do it often and for long periods of time.

After every day, I fall in love with this place more and more. Even when I see the sores and the infections in these kids’ bodies, I am thankful for the opportunity to help out the kids in any way possible. Sometimes the sight isn’t pleasant and sometimes the smell in the clinic gets me. But, I still go back and help a new face that needs lotion, ointment, or a hand to hold while Hydrogen Peroxide bubbles in their wounds. Fiwagoh is such a special place with special kids, and there is no place I’d rather be right now than right here with my precious babies making an imprint on their lives and them making one on mine.