the good in goodbye

Today was the day that everyone dreads. The day we say "goodbye" and head back to America. But, before I talk about that, I want to fill you in on the past 10 days.

Our team was focused on medical and dental check-ups. So, we managed to do check-ups on all 230+ kids and the teachers. I helped with the dental side assisting the cleanings and making sure the dentists had everything written down in each person's file. We had three sessions each day, and every day those hours were filled to the brim.

These past 10 days have been filled with love, joy, and laughter. I've gotten to see my kiddos from the past two years and meet new faces. Each child holds a special place in my heart. The new, the old, all of them took my heart for the third time.

A HUGE answered prayer that happened just last night. One of the people on our team accepted Christ as her Savior. We had been praying for her this whole trip and when we heard what had happened, laughter and tears of joy came from everyone...especially our new sister in Christ!

Today when we left, we had the hug line. The line was longer than the past years because the orphanage has gotten bigger. Each year, I find it harder to leave. The relationships get deeper and the love overflows. The kids faces light up every time I see them, and their faces are even brighter when they see people return to them after a long time. 

But, when we said goodbye today, it was hard. The kids call this day a "sweet sorrow." It's a sorrow because we're leaving, but it's sweet because of the time we did have. While you're living through it, you see no sweetness in it. But, sitting in this airport, I see the sweet part. It sounds weird, but I love seeing the kids cry because it means I made a difference in their life. If they didn't care, then there would be no tears or sorrow. So, as much as it hurts, it's worth every single tear because it shows what an impact we made to them.

So, here I am heading back to America knowing that my heart is still here in Kenya. These past 12 days have been amazing, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. These kids, as usual, have made an imprint in my life and I hope I have done the same thing in their lives.

update from the African ground

Jambo from AFRICAA!!!!
I am soooooo beyond happy to be back with my sweet Kenyan babies! There are so many new faces here, so the whole "knowing almost everyone's name" has gone out the window. But, I have a full heart from loving on my babies from the past two years!
I am going to try to sum up the past two days in just a few short paragraphs, so here goes nothing:
On the day we arrived at the orphanage, everyone was so excited! It took what felt like forever to drive from Nairobi to here. but, once we got here it was worth EVERY second. The kids ran out to greet us and ran by the buses for a long time, yelling our names and holding our hands. Seeing their coffee-bean colored faces again almost made me tear up. I could go on and on about what it felt like seeing them again, but I'm trying to keep this short.
The focus for this year's team is to have all the kids go through a dental and medical check-up. As you know, most kids are terrified of the dentist in America...and guess what? That's a universal thing! I have been helping out with the "waiting area" (five plastic chairs in a circle) of the make-shift dental office (three chairs sat in the back of the dining/worship area). There, you see it all. Kids smiling, kids shaking from nervousness, and everything in between. But, one sweet girl stuck out to me.
She has only been at the orphanage for about two weeks and she's 7 years old. Let me tell you, she was TERRIFIED of the dentist. While we were sitting and waiting, she had already started crying just thinking about the dentist putting those sharp tools in her mouth. I tried to get her mind off of the dentist, so she sat in my lap and watched the video of the Fiwagoh kids singing at the Day of the African Child. (because we got to go this year! part 2 for me!!) After watching that video, we went through all the previous pictures I had taken and we played with the "chicken" (a blown-up medical glove). Then came the hard part, it was her turn to take a seat on the dentist's chair. We made it about halfway to the chair and then she figured out that it was her turn in the seat. so, tears started flowing. I was holding her hand and when she realized we were headed to the "dental office" she let go and refused to go further. Normally, a waiting room helper didn't stay with the kids while getting worked on, but there was an exception made for this sweet girl. By the time we reached the chair and she sat down, tears flowed and she refused to open her mouth or lay down on the table. So, we just had her check-up sitting up straight. You would think the hard part is over EXCEPT she had a cavity. And that meant she had to get a shot of anesthetic and had to lay back on the chair. After a solid 15 minutes of screaming crying and trying to hold her down to get the shot, we got it done. At that point, I thought she was going to hate me forever because I was the face she saw while all this was happening. I have to admit, it was so hard watching a child you love go through pain. But, I had to continually remind myself that this was for her benefit, no matter how much it hurt. And from there, it was a breeze. It took about 20 minutes to drill more holes on her tooth and fill them in with paste. Then, when she thought she was done, she still had to get her teeth cleaned with the toothpaste and stuff. After all that was over, she got off the chair and actually held my hand and hugged me. To add to that, she also came up to me this morning and stayed with me and played with my fingernail polish.
This is just one of the million memories I have made here and I wish it could be more in detail where you could actually visualize how it felt and what it was like. But, I don't have that kind of time or talent. This sweet girl has left an imprint on my heart and so have the other 200+ here. I just really love it here.

"An emergency on your part does not constitute for an emergency on mine"

Today's (or yesterday, I guess) the day!!! The day Shelby and I have been waiting for since January! We made it to DFW and had a 6 hour layover there earlier yesterday. Then, we boarded a HUGE British Airways plane headed for Heathrow. We sat next to this couple from Scotland their daughter, who was 9 months old. But, the best part about that baby is that she slept the WHOLE 9 HOURS to London. The airlines made a crib-like thing for her and she was out like a light. PTL for that!! I couldn't imagine a 9 hour flight with a crying baby. Thankfully I haven't had to so far! (knock on wood)

BUT, this is where the fun part starts. Three words for you: Heathrow Airport Security. We had a 45 minute layover in Heathrow, so from the beginning, we had little time to spare. It took what felt like forever to get 39 rows of people from in front of us off the plane. Then, we quickly walked to figure out where we were supposed to go to find our gate and our team. Thankfully, God sent us a Kenyan angel. This man was on the same flight as us, and he had done this many times before. So, we asked him if he could help us. I have no idea what we would've done had he not been there because Heathrow is just so very confusing. Anyway, this man got us to the "express connections" lane in security, so we wouldn't miss our flight. We got in the security line, and we were feeling confident. We had 15 minutes before we started boarding and we had no line in security. But, you know how some people say "don't count your eggs before that hatch"? Well, we counted them and that was a bad choice.

We put our stuff on the belt and walked through the metal detector with no problems. We thought we had it made in the shade sipping pink lemonade UNTIL my backpack was put on a separate belt after going through the x-rays. There were two other cartons of people's things in front of mine and I started worrying. The man who was making sure that there were no illegal things in our stuff was probably the oldest and SLOWEST TSA agent I've ever seen. He took EVERY item out of this girl's backpack that she was going to be living out of for what looked like a month. Then, he got what he needed and took the one small bottle of hand sanitizer to this machine to weigh it (and really just waste all the spare time we had.) By this time, we looked on the flight board, and it said our flight was boarding. The panic started to kick in a little more because there was still another carton before we even got to my backpack. I contemplated just grabbing the backpack and sprinting to the gate, but I feel like that wouldn't have gone over well with these security officers. The next lady had seven applesauce packets for her son (that, might I add, fit the requirements that it needed to), but old man TSA wanted to check the weight, width, height, taste, color, smell, gender, ethnicity, and every other possible thing of EACH packet before he returned it back to the woman. While he was doing an investigation on the applesauce, we looked up and saw next to our flight "gate closing." Panic was all over Shelby's face and mine as well. So, we asked the TSA agent in the next line (who is just standing there) to check out my bag. But, apparently that's illegal so we had to wait on Mr. Sloth.

FINALLY it was our turn to get searched...and Mr. Sloth decides he's going to clock out. Surprise, surprise. He told us his replacement would get to us in a little while and then he was gone. I could've thrown a punch at him, but then again I'm pretty sure that's illegal. So, an eternity later (four minutes) a little old Brit comes to check my bag. We told her the predicament (CLEARLY an emergency on our part) we were in and I told her I would just throw away all the liquids I had and we could be done, but shocker, that's against regulations. She then proceeded to take out EVERY SINGLE ITEM from my backpack while giving us a lecture about not taking the liquids out of my bag. Then, she takes my Chapstick and says that it's a liquid! Like no ma'am, it's not! We were just so done and kept telling her out plane's gate was closing, but she refused to let us leave without her putting the liquids AND Chapstick in a sealed bag. After I finally got all of my belongings back, we apologized to her for trying to make her go faster, and I threw everything into one pocket of my backpack. My backpack was half-zipped and barely on my shoulder, but Shelby and I had to do a DEAD SPRINT to get to the gate on time.

We had become those people. The people everyone makes fun of for running through the airport with pajama pants on and a backpack bulging at the seams with every step. We did the "bob-and-weave" and the "excuse me we're trying not to miss our flight" through the corridors and down the escalator. Our hearts were about to beat out of our chest due to the fact neither of us are about that sprinting life, but the panic and adrenaline kept us going to gate A18. We ran up to the desk and threw our passport and boarding passes to the woman and she just smiled and said "thank you for flying British Airways."

And now, after 29 hours of traveling, we're safe and sound on Kenyan soil and far, far away from airport security.