Back at the very beginning of this project, I wrote about a volunteer team that spent a month with me in the Philippines, the Nehemiah Nannies. These four girls served the orphanage and worked eight hour shifts at times to help our full time house parents and were on duty as a team pretty much 24/7. We ask all the teams that come through to fulfill this time commitment, but the other teams also have around thirty people. These girls were lucky to have one extra volunteer with them, so there number rounded out to a solid five. I tried to give them as much down time as possible as they came to the end of their couple of months with us, but it was definitely not the typical summer vacation.
One of the most interesting things about this group that I met in the Philippines was that one of them was actually attending my alma mater, The University of Alabama. We immediately bonded over some of the Tuscaloosa hot spots and the things we missed from home, so it was nice for me to have someone that close even though we had just met. Again, it may be another one of those “coincidences� that you could explain away, but I’ll still see it as a blessing. After this team left, I kept up a little with Kaitlin to give them updates on the kids as they grew, but it wasn’t until this week that we were finally able to catch up on our own home turf.
We met at Summer Snow (which is a hidden jewel in Tuscaloosa, Alabama that makes the trip alone worth it). I don’t even want to try to explain here because that would increase my word count above average, so just ask me about it if you don’t know. Or just come here.
Moving on. I was able to catch up with Kaitlin and hear where she was headed and all that she wants to do with her future. In a couple of months, she’ll graduate and a couple of weeks after that, she’ll start graduate school. She’s studying speech pathology and wants to focus on children with special needs. By the end of her graduate program, she hopes to be teaching these students that have special needs how to use the gift of speech that God gave them, although it may be a little bit harder for them than the average person. Her heart for children has just expanded, especially with her work overseas.
Now it may be hard for a speech pathologist to work in a country that doesn’t speak her language, but Kaitlin hasn’t ruled out continuing her work internationally. It’s kind of hard to ever leave that once you start. But she has a plan. I know that God gives us these dreams and passions for a reason and it was very clear to see the direction Kaitlin was heading. Now I just pray God continues to enlighten the path He wants her to take and that her dreams will open up for her…
