With my daypack on my lap and our large packs stacked in the
back seat, I pinched myself to make sure that my surroundings were real. I was
sitting in my own seat, with a seatbelt, in an air-conditioned van, riding through
the bustling city of Johannesburg, South Africa. I wasn’t in the bed of a
tar-stained truck, or mushed three teammates deep on one seat in a rickety
mini-bus. I was sitting in a Volkswagen van, chatting with our new contact
about our ministry for the month.
The air-conditioned van was only the beginning of the large
amount of blessings we were walking into during this December journey, I still can’t
believe what God is doing here.
As we pulled into our home for the month, rain was falling
like a steady stream, washing off the dirt and the homesickness I felt last
month and bringing in a whole new season, a season of favor.
Pack in hand, I ducked into the rain and hop scotched over
the puddles into our new home. As I walked up to the sliding glass door on the
side of a tall brick house, I noticed three caramel-colored faces pressed up
against the glass, three sets of hands circling their little faces like a
daisy. These were the faces of our new ministry. My team and I have just
inherited fifty-one abandoned babies under the age of five to love and care for
this Christmas. You can now call the women on my team Aunties, and all the boys
on my team have now stepped into the role of Uncleship.
We are working at an orphanage called “Door of Hope,” which
is a home for abandoned babies. Most of these beautiful babies were found in
garbage cans, cardboard boxes, or simply given up by their mothers immediately
after birth. There are roughly 200 babies abandoned every year in Johannesburg,
and Door of Hope acts as a transition home for children into adoption.
There are three different homes for the babies, and we are
lucky enough to live in the toddler home with eight kids. We are on 24-hour mom
duty here, which includes feeding, burping, playing, teaching, and even
changing dirty diapers. I really wish we could’ve kept track of how many
diapers we’ve changed this month.
It’s interesting the sense of humor the Lord has, because in
my mind, I wasn’t planning on having children for at least another ten years
(that’s what I keep telling my mom). And here I am, living with eight toddlers
and caring for fifty-one babies under the age of five. I think learning the art
of patience is in store for this month? We shall see. In the mean time I’ll
stick to getting the kids excited about Christmas, the most wonderful time of
the year, when I am blessed to be in Africa loving on children who otherwise
wouldn’t have this kind of devotion.
**I won’t be posting
many pictures from ministry this month because we are not allowed to put
pictures of the children online. It protects their privacy and stories**
