Yes, there is life beyond Gracie occuring in this country - believe it or not!
But first, the Gracie!
We had the most fun birthday party for her - the 3 year old actually had more than 15 people attend her party on Tuesday night! We ordered 20 banana cake muffins from a local cook, found three pints of ice cream (at a high premium), a sweet juicy pineapple, lots of oranges, Fanta and Coke, ice, and even birthday balloons, a banner, and a "3" candle! We do not take credit for most of that as our friend here supplied much of the delicacies and decoration! Gracie had SO much fun with all her friends and was in heaven with all the attention!
She is growing up so much and maybe even gaining a little weight? She today actually got a few slimy pieces of banana into her mouth herself while she played with her food! It's very fun to coach her in activities although we wish that we could get her to learn some signs to communicate a little better - but hopefully she'll catch on with time! She has clearly not used her hands for many useful activities previously. She is now moving from staring at her hands to chewing on her fingers, playing with food, putting food or her cup close to her mouth, etc.
We are getting ample opportunity to be consistent in discipline as she continues to challenge our two simple rules. What a delight to be able to have two rules and just two rules and to have the luxury of time to use those rules as an example of what it means to obey and why God commands children to obey their parents. We pray that these lessons are being applied to her heart.
Other than that, in my non-Mommy life, I have been teaching daily seminars to the nannies. This has been so fun for me. Our series yesterday was first aid - the older children acted out a dozen different skits of injuries for the audience - it was fantastic! The nannies got into it to encourage the children and asked great questions about various common health practices. Today we talked about nutrition and dehydration and the ever challenging question of how to get protein (expensive) into the childrens' daily or at least weekly diet. I used an adapted analogy that I learned from a colleague here of a three legged stool - the legs representing carbs, protein, and greens (i.e. green vegetables - my version). If you only have two legs (here, as in most of the developping world, it is carbs and vegetables) the stool (i.e. child) falls over. They really resonated with that analogy and we are working on brainstorming cost-effective ways to get a source of protein into the diet as eggs, milk, fish, meat, and even beans are all expensive relative to the staple rice.
Pray for the nannies to take ownership of the material that we are covering and to take ownership of their ministry to these children! I have been affirming that they are mothers, school teachers, nutritionists, nurses, and missionaries to these children - what a job description!
I have also been doing medical evaluations and reports on special needs children - I have been so priviledged to be a part of their beautiful and often sad stories and have taken every opportunity to affirm the birth family for the wonderful care they have provided for their more challenging children in a setting where resources are so scarce.
We have also enjoyed getting to know various methods for orphan ministry and have become a little more acquainted with Rafiki Foundation www.rafiki-foundation.org - we would recommend checking out this concept of a village for orphans to raise them to be leaders in their own communities. We would welcome your thoughts and comments about orphan care in sub-Saharan Africa!
We finally have our embassy date for Friday - hopefully after Friday we will be all set to leave next Wednesday. Pray that all goes smoothly. We have been forwarned that we may get a hard time in our interview because we are relatively poor, but God is good - pray that we represent Christ through any stressful times that we encounter!
But first, the Gracie!
We had the most fun birthday party for her - the 3 year old actually had more than 15 people attend her party on Tuesday night! We ordered 20 banana cake muffins from a local cook, found three pints of ice cream (at a high premium), a sweet juicy pineapple, lots of oranges, Fanta and Coke, ice, and even birthday balloons, a banner, and a "3" candle! We do not take credit for most of that as our friend here supplied much of the delicacies and decoration! Gracie had SO much fun with all her friends and was in heaven with all the attention!
She is growing up so much and maybe even gaining a little weight? She today actually got a few slimy pieces of banana into her mouth herself while she played with her food! It's very fun to coach her in activities although we wish that we could get her to learn some signs to communicate a little better - but hopefully she'll catch on with time! She has clearly not used her hands for many useful activities previously. She is now moving from staring at her hands to chewing on her fingers, playing with food, putting food or her cup close to her mouth, etc.
We are getting ample opportunity to be consistent in discipline as she continues to challenge our two simple rules. What a delight to be able to have two rules and just two rules and to have the luxury of time to use those rules as an example of what it means to obey and why God commands children to obey their parents. We pray that these lessons are being applied to her heart.
Other than that, in my non-Mommy life, I have been teaching daily seminars to the nannies. This has been so fun for me. Our series yesterday was first aid - the older children acted out a dozen different skits of injuries for the audience - it was fantastic! The nannies got into it to encourage the children and asked great questions about various common health practices. Today we talked about nutrition and dehydration and the ever challenging question of how to get protein (expensive) into the childrens' daily or at least weekly diet. I used an adapted analogy that I learned from a colleague here of a three legged stool - the legs representing carbs, protein, and greens (i.e. green vegetables - my version). If you only have two legs (here, as in most of the developping world, it is carbs and vegetables) the stool (i.e. child) falls over. They really resonated with that analogy and we are working on brainstorming cost-effective ways to get a source of protein into the diet as eggs, milk, fish, meat, and even beans are all expensive relative to the staple rice.
Pray for the nannies to take ownership of the material that we are covering and to take ownership of their ministry to these children! I have been affirming that they are mothers, school teachers, nutritionists, nurses, and missionaries to these children - what a job description!
I have also been doing medical evaluations and reports on special needs children - I have been so priviledged to be a part of their beautiful and often sad stories and have taken every opportunity to affirm the birth family for the wonderful care they have provided for their more challenging children in a setting where resources are so scarce.
We have also enjoyed getting to know various methods for orphan ministry and have become a little more acquainted with Rafiki Foundation www.rafiki-foundation.org - we would recommend checking out this concept of a village for orphans to raise them to be leaders in their own communities. We would welcome your thoughts and comments about orphan care in sub-Saharan Africa!
We finally have our embassy date for Friday - hopefully after Friday we will be all set to leave next Wednesday. Pray that all goes smoothly. We have been forwarned that we may get a hard time in our interview because we are relatively poor, but God is good - pray that we represent Christ through any stressful times that we encounter!
Comments
The website you gave has a dash, just so you know... http://www.rafiki-foundation.org/