Hi, everyone! It's been way too long since I updated you all on life at the Home. I brought in the New Year changing Baby Brecken's dirty diaper while he screamed his head off. :) I hope you all had memorable New Year's Eves, as well. As usual, lots has been going on here and constantly changing. In order not to write you a novel, I'm just going to bullet point the last few weeks.
- Emily and Jonathan, Jennifer's sister and boyfriend have been here for the past two weeks, enjoying time with Jennifer and taking care of the babies. It's been fun getting to know them and so nice having a few extra hands to help hold and feed the babies. They fly out tomorrow morning to return to the States.
- Caleb's parents arrived last Tuesday, surprise greeted by Ted and Caleb at the airport. They didn't know Caleb was going with Ted to pick them up. I was a little sad that I didn't get to see the Morgans' first reaction to meeting their baby, but his mom said it wasn't a teary eye sort of meeting. Caleb was screaming in the car seat and Ted said, "He's yours!" :) Nothing like getting thrown into parenthood with a kicking and screaming 6 month old! They have been so great and are doing so well adjusting to now be a mommy and daddy. They are Wycliffe missionaries in Tanzania doing Bible translation for people there that don't yet have the Bible in their language. Rachel and Jonathan shared during devotions tonight about their life and work. It took them 1 year to translate Genesis, and 3 years to translate the gospel of Mark! Some of the people groups their organization works with don't even have a written language yet! They have to analyze their language and come up with an alphabet for them before ever beginning translations. I have loved learning about their work and am going to look further into Bible translating as a possible future career! They fly back to the States on Tuesday where they will finish their furlough before heading home.
- Also leaving on Tuesday is Gabrielle. Everyone is really sad to see her go home. She has really done a great job forming friendships with the older kids and of course loving the babies. Her and I got to spend lots of nights doing the eleven o'clock feeding the week before last and we got to spend a day together in Lo Tung on our day off this past week. God really did some good work with putting us here at the same time. I have learned a lot from her and will miss her sweet spirit and bubbly personality.
- Whenever one person leaves, the next person comes. That's what it seems like here. Meredith, the newest volunteer arrived on Friday. She is 23 and another midwest girl. She has been great and has already jumped right into our schedule. She will be volunteering for a whole year, doing some language study in the summer months. I am excited to get to know her and share the next two months with her. God has already been good in blessing me through her as she let me go to bed early tonight, so I could catch up on some things (like writing this blog).
- The day off that i had with Gabrielle was full of many adventures. We just decided to go into Lu Tung and explore past the market. It has been my favorite day off so far. We found a few bakeries and tried some delicious pastries, we ordered coffee and tea at a road side stand (something I've been wanting to do since I got here- it helped that the stand we went to had a Chinese/English sign!), shopped around at the little stores we found, checked out the supermarket, and ended the day eating at a pizza place. The joke for the day was that I stepped in a puddle soaking my foot and jeans because I was too busy flirting with some old men who were very excited to see an American girl. I was just trying to be friendly!
- One afternoon, I went down to the lake to read for awhile and met two men and two women riding a four person bike. The bikes are rented out by the lake for people to use. They were waving hello, so I smiled and waved back. The man asked me in Chinese how old I was and was surprised when I answered him back in Chinese. They got a huge kick out of the little Chinese that I can speak. Each of them wanted their picture with me. They thanked me and left, which i thought was the end of it, but then as I was sitting on a bench near the lake, I heard giggling behind me every once in awhile, and turned around to see that the same people were riding their bike in little circles right behind me. They asked me if I wanted to hop on and ride with them around the lake, but I politely told them I was reading. It was a fun interaction.
- The older kids have been so much fun! Wan Ching painted my and Gabrielle's fingernails, and yesterday Tz Wen (12 year old boy) grabbed my hand to play a miniature air hockey game. Also, today the barber came and all of the younger boys got their hair cut. I embarrassed them all by telling them they looked handsome. :)
- We got Logan's first paper which means his parents will be coming to get him in the next couple of weeks!!!! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
-I am continued to be amazed at Bev and Ted and how they run the orphanage. People are constantly coming and going. Bev lives her life having to get to know new people all the time just in time for them to leave and the next person to come. Both her and Ted's generosity and hospitality astound me. I don't think I could live with the constant change and giving of energy to get to know and welcome new people all the time for my whole life. They are such special and faithful people.
God is good.
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