My days at Seeds of Love
I’m on bath duty and dishes duty with Beck’s for the month. We head over to help the little ones bathe at 5:30pm. Let me tell you there is nothing more fun then bath time with four babies! They make bath time look so fun!! Splashing and swimming and laughing! No one leaves dry including Beck’s and I! The challenge the other night was getting them out of the tub they were having so much fun. The other night one of little boys stayed outside playing later than the other three babies so he got his own bath all to himself. But I felt so bad for the little guy because the hot water ran out, so he had to take a cold bath. I didn’t fill the tub just rinsed him with the water. I felt terrible until he started laughing so hard. He handled a cold bath so well! We have to lotion them and dress them quickly because they love to run through the house naked. I accidentally let one escape and I had to chase him through the house he thought it was pretty funny, laughing the whole way! That is what bath time is usually like. Sometimes it’s opposite and a battle to get them in the tub.
Dish duty is at 7pm. We wash all the dinner dishes and pots. One of us washes bowls, cups, and spoons while the other scrubs the pots. As we scrub the pots we dump the gunk outside. As I went outside to dump the gunk I didn’t realize children were sneaking up behind me. Why were they sneaking? They had a giant dove, that was the size of a pigeon. Why were they sneaking behind me with this large bird you might be wondering. They thought it’d be cool to set it on the back of my neck…So fun! I didn’t realize what they had put on my neck or that it was alive until it moved! I jumped, and it fell off my neck onto the ground and their dog jumped for it to have some nice bird dinner. Don’t worry they swooped it up before it became dog chow! I asked why did you do that? Extremely confused and freaked out! They looked confused right back at me like why wouldn’t we do that, with smiles on their faces and an ornery look in their eye!! Then they started trying to put it on my neck again! I ran like a little girl screaming into the house as they chased me laughing. I can’t look at the doves here the same anymore! I jump every time they fly by me. I don’t know why a bird scared me so much, probably because I wasn’t expecting one to randomly be on my neck. I was able to laugh it off, but now the birds really do make me nervous!
We also spend time playing with the children throughout the day. They love climbing on the jungle gym and in trees, doing our hair, coloring, drawing, using chalk, playing soccer, painting nails, singing, and one of their favorite things is dancing. Melissa, a member of my team started a dance party outside one day and they want to listen to music and dance everyday now! When we first got here they wanted to watch movies on our laptops, but our team didn’t have any. So instead of “movie today”�, they now say, “music today, music today!�” They also just love to be next to us. The babies love to take naps on us which I’m totally fine with, nothing better than baby snuggles.
We have also been doing some Bible studies, songs, and skits. They don’t understand everything we say but they love the skits and studies regardless! And we have hope that some of it is sinking in.
Some of the older ones are eager to learn English and will ask how to spell English words. Bereng, one of the boys knows a lot of English but acts as though he doesn’t just to be ornery. But yesterday he sat with me for a good thirty minutes having me say English words to see if he could spell them. He’s very intelligent.
I’m trying so hard to try and learn all their names! They make different sounds when speaking than I’m used to! And they try so hard to help us sound names out. They laugh so hard because we sound ridiculous! But just the fact that we’re trying means a lot to them. After working on their names with me, they wanted to learn my name. I started helping them learn my name and helping them sound it out. There is a little girl here and her name is spelled Neo but sounds like Nao so they were like when we forget your name we’ll think of Neo. I said yes that’s a great idea and you can just call me, mi. They laughed and agreed.
There is a little boy here, Tankiso, who is very quiet and a lot of the time is away from the other kids doing his own thing. My heart is drawn to him because he kind of reminds me of my childhood. I was quiet and a loner when I was little. My mom used to realize she hadn’t see me or heard anything out of me for a little bit and she would find me curled up in the stuffed animal box we had sleeping, or hiding listening to Jonny Cash with my little tape player and headphones. I also played by myself a lot and was totally content. But it is kind of lonely and I know it’s important to be sought out when being a loner just to know someone sees you and cares like my Mom did. So that’s why my heart is pulled toward this boy. So yesterday I decided I would just try to go talk with him. He doesn’t speak much English but that’s never stopped me in the last few countries, so I went to just say hello and ask what he was up to. He pointed at a pipe, I have realized he likes to fix things and work on things. I asked him if I could sit next to him and he smiled and nodded yes. I sat down and just started saying what things were in English to make conversation he then took me around the whole property telling me what things were in Sesotho, his language. He then was holding my arm and staying with me the rest of the day and interacting with everyone more. I think he needed to feel seen and like someone actually cared and wanted to spend time with him. This morning when I went to the house to wait to walk with them to school, we do that every morning since school started, he came over to me and smiled and just leaned over on me for a minute. My heart here is to help all of the children feel like they are cared about and loved. They have a nice and safe place at the orphanage and are cared about deeply. But I think it is really special to them when teams come and pour their time and love into them. It makes them feel special and important. It is going to be hard to leave after spending so much time with them. But I’m so happy to have the time we have to pour into them and them, pour into us!
They also love getting their picture taken!
Until next time,
God Bless =)
