Almost all of the painting was finished at the Bible School,
so Josh, Brienna, and I returned to the shelter yesterday. Ryan and Tim are hoping to finish the job in
the next day or two. I wish I could have
stayed to see the building completed, but it would have meant staying in a room
all alone across the campus from Ryan and Tim and I was not okay with
that. So I am back to feeding and
playing with babies and kids. I always
end up feeding the toddlers, because the women in the toddler section seem to
need the most help. This particular
section is the loudest with the most action.
I’m pretty sure that the women give me the most difficult toddlers to
feed; the ones that don’t like to eat and the ones that cry a lot. There is one little boy that is especially
challenging to feed and he does not like to smile. I have not seen him smile since I have
started helping out. It is my goal to
get him to smile and laugh before I leave.
I also get to play with the preschool group of kids when I
am not feeding the babies. The new
favorite activity for the kids is to check out the chickens. The shelter recently bought 40 chickens, so
the kids periodically peek into the chicken coop to see if there are any
eggs. I don’t know if I have seen kids get so excited about finding an Easter egg let alone a chicken’s egg. When they are not checking for
eggs the kids are swinging, sliding, and running around outside. Some of the kids do not speak English, but
use one of the many tribal languages of South Africa. However, all of the kids know the words:
“Momma”, “no”, “push me”, and most importantly “chickens”.
