Monday morning – Kevin “we should have a carnival for the kids this weekend’
– Us “sweet, lets do it”, “Do they know what a carnival is?”
Thursday afternoon – Kevin “talked to Joshua he said Sunday was no good, he said Friday would be good”
-Us “so carnival TOMORROW night?”
Friday morning – assemble supply list; including a beach ball, ping-pong balls, face paint, whip cream (all things I was very skeptical we would find here), assemble a shopping crew and budget
Friday afternoon – head into town, back by 4:30 with supplies in hand, start making signs and setting up.
Friday night – LET THE FUN BEGIN!!!!
making signs and decorating our 'staff' hats
'welcome!!!'
ready for the fun and games!!
first group game, musical chairs! 🙂
we have a winner!!
next up, carnival games. We have 'Bozo Buckets' and 'Ring Toss' in this pic
'Minute-to-Win-it' station. Mostly they just wanted the cookies 🙂 (see babygirl sneeking one behind me :)) hilarious
Kat and Maria were 'Ball Bounce'
'Ladder Ball'! The beach ball was a miraculous find in town! They had to roll/toss it to a designated step on the ladder to get the points.
Announcing winners! Each station kept track of how many points the kids recieved from each game and we tallied them afterwards.
The 3 winners got to 'pie' britni! It was more like runny pudding then whip cream, she took it like a champ. The kids LOVED it!
First place about to pie, the kids were dying of anticipation.
Success
my girls, minus one
The 'Carnival' was amazing and the kids had such a blast! They got to run and laugh and eat candy and forget that they've been abandoned or sexually abused or any internal sadness they're dealing with for an hour at least. I believe this was their first 'carnival' experience and this night changed our relationship with the kids and even some of the staffers at KIM kids. The kids learned that we're there for them and the staff saw that we'd do anything to reach out to the orphanage.
I think the most amazing thing that happened this night was after the carnival was over and we were heading back one of the kids opened up and shared with one of us how they'd gotten there and how their life had been before the Childrens Home. We aren't supposed to ask personal questions or really go in depth with the kids about their past but we've learned most of the stories through the staff, but it was a huge turning point for one of them to trust us enough to share.
It's easy to forget that these aren't just normal kids because they hide their pain so well. But they have a story, and it's usually because by some extreme measures that they're at the orphanage.
