Wednesday’s Notes

Got up with the crying birds again this morning.  I’m glad that we have the long, long drive out to the orphanage to snooze just a bit.  If you can have a little snooze it helps when you get there.  Three days ago you could’ve never convinced me that I would be thankful for that drive at any time. (smile)

Today at the orphanage we had some games that we wanted to teach the kids.  We taught them kickball, baseball, frisbee, jumpropes, and played with blow up beach balls with the little kids. Tyler and I were in charge of Frisbees.  We had a good time with the kids and the frisbees.  They grasped quickly the correct way to throw it and wanted to do it by themselves.  So we paired them up and let them play for a while.  Now over in another section, the team members said that they did not grasp kickball.  One girl said that it was much harder to explain than she thought it would be and the interpreter couldn’t be at every station, so at times we all had to figure out the simplest words to communicate.  I also watched the girls practice for their relay races caring an empty glass coke bottle on their heads. So I practiced too.  I’m not terrible, but I’m not as good as these young ladies.  Too bad, I don’t have the pictures yet to post.   :-)

Right after lunch we took our worship time down to the prayer garden.  This is a rock path running down a hillside with a rock wall  running across the path.  If you look at from down the mountain you see a cross.  It is underneath  a canopy of trees and one of the most peaceful places I have ever sat.  Worship was different here.   The holy spirit truly came and just filled that space under the canopy.   I had heard a few children the day before singing “Lord you are more precious than silver…….”.  So when I told the guys, we decided to add that to the worship time.  Watching these kids sing and worship  to lyrics that they truly understood was an experience I would experience it again in a heart beat.   It has to be some of the purest worship that I had the privileged to be apart of and also the most humbled I have ever been to have been in that place.

A group leading in worship.

One of the scriptures we thought most important to teach the children was Romans 5:5 And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who he’s given us.

We taught them this scripture in song and a couple of their young boys gave us a great beat on the drums.  It was so fun, and cool, and well…. it was just the Lord.

Drums. Awesome!

Maria saw some pictures of my family.  She kept asking me everyone’s names.  After only a couple of minutes many of the older girls were gathered around.  They all wanted to know the names of each person. As soon as I would say the name they would repeat it.  Ok, so I must stop here and explain that they write their last names first and then their first names on everything: their bibles, their papers and letters to us, everything.  So everytime they would ask me the name of my middle child I would say, “RileyGrace” and they would repeat “Grace”.  So I would say it again and they would still only say “Grace”.  It finally hit me that they think her last name is Riley.  I had a good little chuckle out of this.

Mama had lunch again.  It is really hard to say no to Mama but it was also very hard to eat like that when you are sooooooooooooooooooo hot.   I did eat but very small portions, but I kept praying the whole time that she would not be offended. But my stomach doesn’t feel right, and hasn’t for any meal today.

For crafts this afternoon, we made bookmarks with the kids that included the scriptures we were teaching them.  These were printed off on cardstock and the kids simply glued them to the book marks. We also had beads and string for them to make necklaces.  This was a huge hit!

Then they called all of us together and the choir had some songs to sing for us.  They had come up with their own thankyou song to Sweet Sleep.  It was great!  It was fantastic! and I can’t wait to put up a link to the video so that all of you can see it.   It was too much fun!!

Here’s something that I have been very  surprised about – I’m having  hard time finding alone time with God.  I’ve been trying to at least have some time at bedtime, but I’m asleep before I can finish reading or praying.  Getting up before the crying birds is simply not going to happen because that is the time of morning that I am finally truly asleep.  It seems that every minute of our day is packed.  So I find myself praying these short little sentences prayers throughout the day. I know this is ok, but I am craving time alone with God. I was determined last night to have some time before I went to bed.   I felt just like the disciples in the garden, I could not stay awake.  I kept falling asleep and then I would wake up and  pray a little more.  After a few times of this cycle, I started to laugh at myself and climbed into bed and went to sleep.  Jesus knows exactly the physical state of my body and what I have been doing all day.  I decided at that moment to simply rest in His love.  Proverbs 3:24 When you lie down, you will not be afraid, when you lie down your sleep will be sweet.