 |
| Happy Birthday Jesus meal! |
 |
| Baby R with her new toys! |
December was great. It went by pretty quickly!
Mostly the weeks before Christmas have been a bit of a blur. With getting ready for Christmas, Christmas Day and New Years Eve. We were all pretty busy here at Lily. Not just with getting things ready but also making sure we spent time with the kids as well.
 |
| Girls showing off their gifts |
Christmas day was a bit rainy but there was nothing we could do about it so the day went on. First we started the day with a movie and pancakes in our P.J.s! This was great! While all the kids and teens were at the movie some of us volunteers took all the gifts around to the houses so when all the kids got home they were they and ready to open! All the gifts were donated! There is a company here in South Africa called Rainbow Chicken and they bought gifts for each of the kids. Then many of the volunteers over the past months started asking for money from family and friends back home to fundraise money for gifts for the kids. The turn out was great! Some of the Mom’s ( the Caregivers in each of the houses) were saying that this was the best year for that! Which is really great, so thank you to who ever helped out with that!!
Around 1:00 there was a jumping castle and a mechanical bull that were set up for the kids to play on. They had a blast! The volunteers even got on and tried our hand on the mechanical bull! For the most part things were good and after awhile you just gave up trying not to get too wet. With standing out in the rain and supervising things it was inevitable! Though at one point I did go and get an extra sweater on to be a bit warmer.
Supper was great! We had papa (which is made from maize meal and is a traditional dish in Southern Africa), chakalaka (which is made from tomatoes, onions and other spices), chicken, beef, beet salad, and most importantly we had chip (I mean french fries!) After supper was just clean up and then everyone went home! Everything ran really smoothly and we got to celebrate Jesus Birthday.
 |
| Bull riding! |
 |
| Bouncy Castle! |
New Year’s Eve was another great celebration! Though the weather was a little different! A little melting!! We spent the afternoon playing on some different inflatable toys. One was an obstacle course, then the toddler bouncy castle and finally the gladiator, where the kids stood on rotating platforms and tried to smack each other off!
Once 5:30 came around the kids went home for a little while until supper was all set up! One of the boys who was adopted last year wanted to give the Lily kids a gift so he asked his mom to send money to buy everyone KFC. And so we all ate KFC for supper that night! While we ate a side show of pictures from the last year was running. Everyone loved this!!
We had an early new years eve fire works for the young ones and then later in the evening had another fire works for the teens at midnight.
We ended up staying out until 1:30 swimming in the pool! It was such a great night!
Now the summer holidays are coming to a close. Starting on Wednesday the kids start going back to school. A part of me is looking forward to school starting and being able to have a little bit of a schedule again. But it also makes me sad because I know once they go back to school there won’t be nearly that much hangout time with the kids. During the week most of the time with the kids will be working on homework and working toward bettering their education. Which is why I came, so I am thrilled to be able to help this way. I will just need to make sure I am living in the moment and embracing each of the kids I get to work with in that time.
I am also not looking forward to school starting because I know that means that the grade 12s, who over the past few months I have grown to love to spend time with, especially the girls, I will have to say good-bye to. Many of them are going to Durban and so there is a small chance I will get to see them again, but this is not for sure.
 |
| Some of our meal servers! Prisca and Dominik |
Until next time….hope you are having a great start to your new year!
(P.S. all the pictures are from Christmas day!)
