Wallking into an orphanage.

Well I guess most things are never what they seem. It was behind a large concrete wall, with barbed wire & broken glass on top of the wall. It had a large, iron gate out front, which we sat in front of until the watch came to open it. Then you go into a yard with a home in it. Nothing institutional about it. Just a house that had been turned into a home...for orphaned kids. It was then that we met our host, Sandra. Everything I pictured her to be. Warm, to the point, loving, blessed, matronly & graceful, not in a hurry, unfazed, etc. She told Mandi - 1st thing is for you to identify a child. Here is a list of the adoptable kids (some are already being adopted, some are there temporarily, etc.). No go. Find a child. We were not all that ready for it to look like this. Our initial idea, way back when, was that the Zambian gov't, in contact with the H.O.M. would refer us to a child, who we would then fly to pick up (knowing that they might be adopted before we were there). Then in June we learned, nah...the Zambian gov't just clears you to come over, then you come over to the orphanage and we'll refer you. So we knew they had babies, and the Zambians had "invited" us...so we flew over. We just weren't quite ready to hear...the babies are in there, find the one you want to adopt.

So we went in to the "Crawlers" room (quick note - there are 3 "houses" connected to this group: 0-24 mos.; 24 mos.- pre-school; school aged to - out on your own. We are at the 1st, the House of Moses. They have 2 rooms - 1 for the "babies" - 11 babies who cannot crawl yet & 1 for the crawlers - 9 or 10 toddlers who are just graduated from the 1st, but not ready for the next House up).
We entered into the room, juuuussssst after dinner. We know that b/c it was everywhere. Dinner that is. On the floor, on their clothes, faces & hands. Not in some uncaring, unsanitary, we got nothing better to do feel. Just the kind of feel that it would be if you had 3 people to feed that group of toddlers. The 2 workers were joined by a volunteer in changing, finishing feeding, holding/loving & pulling out of closets (couple of these kids are pretty mobile). Everything stopped when we entered - kinda like in Animal House, when they go in the nightclub. I'm not sure if it was our 3 blonde kids, or my scary, bald head...but they wanted to check us out. Then it was just playtime. Addie was all in...she would sit next to a kid and say "boo" or roll a ball or whatever. Rayna & Zeke were a little slower, but warmed up quick. They were checking the kids out...Zeke was giving some funny play-by-play on some of the crawling. It was a little tough with names at 1st (hindered somewhat by the fact that these kids wear whatever was on top of the pile, no color matching, blue fo rboys stuff here - Baby Gap dude would be flipping). The babies wanted to be held, and were really not all that intimidated by us. It was really wonderful to experience the peace that was in that room. Only God could enable there to be such a presence of love there. To us it seemed the workers & volunteers were just saints.

We then went upstairs to the "preemies" - except they were really just little babies. We did somewhat of the same, with the same initial reaction. One of those babies asked the other "where'd the dud with the yellow hair & the cool smile come from?" Kidding...but one of the babies could not stop looking at Zeke, and vice-versa. It was one of the 1st moments we saw Zeke really getting attached to this idea (God be praised). Then it was out the door to head to our guest house (10 minute cab ride) at Juls Guest House...a wonderful respite. Really a sweet place, with the most amazing hostess, Julie Limpic. More on her later...she has a wonderful story of GOd's grace in her own life. We had peanut butter & honey rolls (packed from home), bottled water (compliments of Sandra, since the airport took most of ours) and then worked on our journals that we are all keeping (Rayna's journal is so quintessential Rayna - thoughtful, artistic, cute, sweet, etc). We read some of "Stormy, Misty's foal" and went to bed.

--side note...today is really Thursday, and the last two blogs are from Wednesday's stuff. It's late and I'm typing on one of Julie's work computers (it's a travel agency as well). I will sign off with these for now, and work on today's tomorrow. I could not load pictures through this computer, so I will work on that tomorrow. We got some good ones.