Karaoke and the wave

He was determined to win.

This morning’s visit was filled with love, laughter, hugs, high fives, fist bumps, dancing, pictures, yelling, a few tears, lots of smiles, and emptiness, or a void.  I’m not sure how to describe it.  This is the last day that we will be seeing these kids at least for a week as we take some time to regroup.  Yeah, I know, I’ll see them again in about a week.  But tomorrow we have court.  They are losing one of their own to the outside world.  But we are taking a friend away from the orphanage.  Someone who cares about them.  Someone who takes time with the little ones.  Someone who is one of them.  My heart is so full of mixed emotions right now.

We arrived during an all hands on deck meeting.  I have no idea what they talked about.  After the meeting was finished they headed over to the cafeteria for breakfast.  Today’s hot meal was scalded milk with some kind of grain mixed in.  It looked like a VERY runny cream of wheat.  But think of two cups of milk to one tablespoon of grains.  They also got a cube of butter, slice of cheese, half of a thick slice of bread, a hard-boiled egg and hot chocolate.  Mmmmm!  This took them all of 5 minutes to eat.  I sat with the youngest children at the orphanage during breakfast and they were very happy to chat with me.

So yeah, today was cleanup, sweep up, and hack the weeds day.  The older boys, 11-13 get tasked with removing the taller greenery (some of it is weeds, some grass, some flowers) with shovels.  They aren’t digging the plants up to get rid of the root, they are just hacking off the plant at the base.  They were clearly not excited about doing the task.  Personally, I see no issue in getting the children to help out around the orphanage.  However, if you are going to ask for their help in keeping the place running, take the time to read to them, to play with them, to share stories of your youth with them.  Maybe a missions trip just on management training.  Hmmm.  Focus Mike.  Too many irons in the fire.  Let someone else run with it.  The younger children were given brooms and told to sweep all the flower petals off and away from the front steps of the dorm.  To help the children have fun with it, they did bring out a big speaker plugged into a laptop and played music.

Sophia and Lisa went upstairs to try on the outfits and other clothes we had to see if any of them could be put together to create at least one outfit for court.  SUCCESS!  They found one pair of pants and a shirt that fit.  Woohoo!  We did buy her a pair of size 10 pants here that fit in the waist but are too short in the length. We brought a pair of size 12 jeans that were too big in the waist, but also too short in the length.  Oh boy.  We’ll figure this out when we get back to the states, but suffice it to say, we’re stickin with shorts until she can try on the pants.

The wave!

By the time they came back downstairs I was in full song and dance with some of the other kids, which means I would recite the lyrics I knew and bob my head.  No gettin jiggy with it!  We spent the rest of the time listening to music.  Watching various types of acrobatic tricks being performed by Sasha.  He’s a great kid and would no doubt test the limits of authority, but I also know that he’s got my back and that partnership would carry through a lot of strife.  I will pray for him as he approaches graduation in the next year or two.  Somewhere in the middle of all this, Lisa grabbed a couple and taught them how to do the wave with their arms.   This is an 80’s break dance move and it was hilarious to watch her teach and then all of them try it.  The cool part, they smiled.  I don’t know how it started but one of the little guys grabbed my hand and motioned for us to arm wrestle.  So for the next 5 guys in line, I arm wrestled and they boys got progressively bigger.  I didn’t win any as after about a minute or two, Lisa would grab the hands and pull them down for the boy.  Again, the cool part, they smiled.

I showed Sophia the messages from her friends and she was excited to read them and promptly got busy writing her replies.  So cool.  She got so excited to see the pictures and read their messages back.  We also handed out a few other items we had with us.  Little Maxim needed a new pair of sandals, so we got him some.  Another little freckled boy, named Victor, also needed some new sandals and shorts.  Done, I hope they help and don’t become a bargaining chip or taken.

As time was up, we said our goodbye’s and started walking.  We tried to explain what tomorrow would look like, but we couldn’t.  We have been told we have court and that it will happen at 2:30.  We have already had it pushed back from 10am to 2:30 and we have a suspicion why, but it’s not worth explaining here.  However, we do not want any further delays, who does.  We told Sophia that we will come to get her tomorrow and will not be visiting in the morning.  We plan to go to dinner after court. And lastly, while I have showed Sophia various messages on the translator, I have not spoken the words I love you to her.  So down on one knee I looked at her and said, “I love you.” and she replied “Я то же.”  That was the best hug I have gotten thus far on this trip.