A few times during the past few weeks I’ve mentioned that I missed knitting. It’s winter in the States and that is usually when I knit the most. My friends and I would gather at a cafe or at someone’s house and pass the time together knitting, chatting, and invariably drinking tea. There are times on the Race when I just want to whip out my knitting: while watching a movie, while hanging out, while drinking hot tea.
God took my desire to heart. He gave me a chance to (k)nit.
My team is working at New Life Children’s Home this month. It is called children’s home instead of orphanage because most of the children have a mother. Social services took the kids out of their homes either because of neglect or abuse. The mothers are allowed to visit their kids regularly and some of them do. There are 47 kids: 24 girls and 23 boys. Several are brothers and sisters. All are precious.
Recently, while the directors were gone, there was an outbreak of lice. 23 girls with heads covered in lice and nits. Our task this week was to help eradicate the lice before school starts next Tuesday. We took fine-toothed combs and went through each girl’s hair to find the live bugs and kill them. The next step is to pick out the nits, which are attached around a hair follicle, usually near the scalp. You have to get the nit with your finger nail and pull it the entire length of the strand of hair to remove it. Most of the girls had thousands of nits.
I was able to spend many hours (k)hitting this week. While it’s not exactly what I meant when I said I missed knitting, it has filled my heart to be able to love on the girls through this act of service.
A few things I’ve learned this week: Nit picking is more tedious than I ever imagined and I now fully understand the saying. It takes a long time to count each strand of hair on a head; that shows a lot of love for God to know how many I have. It’s humbling to spend hours nit picking one girl’s hair. Checking each other’s hair for lice is a great team building experience.
