if you'd forget the pain i caused before

these two boys are not from amani, they are from the villages down by the lake. i want to make my way down there as much as i can.

i promised to keep this blog more so than anything else, but in all honesty every time the kids are napping, i have a break, or wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep. i think about writing an entry, but most times it is too overwhelming to start. there is not enough blog space to explain to you the things i am seeing and learning here in Jinja. There isn't enough time, nor the right words i could use to help you picture all of this. every time i would attempt to log in and write an entry i'd close my computer with out writing a thing, because honestly i don't know where to start. the times i write are the times i feel like i can make some sort of attempt at it.

i wish i could explain to you the type of love you feel when you pick up one of these babies and hold them close. as they immediately stop crying, there is this brief moment of silence where you can hear God quietly remind you why you flew over 8,000 miles to spend 3 months with these children. i wish i could in some way package up the joy you get from hearing these kids laugh, and send it back home. i can tell you that is a better gift than any wooden giraffe or any hand crafted necklace. i wake up and get to see the 8 smallest babies light up when as i say good morning and hold their hand or kiss them on the forehead. See i really can't begin to explain these things to you. you'd have to see it for yourself. The Ugandan people are so unbelievably strong and resilient. I was making an attempt to explain this to a friend the other night, and it is unreal to me that we coexist with them on the same planet. I feel lucky to be here.

Today we have off. I'll explain a normal day at Amani. As i've explained i wake up around 6:00-6:30am every morning, just before the sun rises. The 8 smallest babies live upstairs with us, so i get to see them (baby A's) every morning. i either hear them, or the roosters first. i get up, make myself breakfast which has included fresh pineapple every morning. then we get dressed, and go to work at 8am. We get schedules every week, for the most part we work monday through friday, roughly 8am to 7pm. We begin our day a little bit after the kids get up, and end it as they go to sleep. The mamas have everything under control, we offer a little bit of extra help and love for the kids. but believe me, these kids and these mamas do a lot more for us than we do for them. We alternate working saturdays, and then have off a different day during the week. At first this seemed overwhelming, but as i sit on my day off trying to explain some of this to you, it's hard to not be spending time with them. We have a break while the children are napping, during which we eat lunch and a lot of the time walk into town and just look around. We help feed, change diapers, play with, and wash up the kids. There are 8 other girls here volunteering, all of them are great.

Power is off and on, as is internet. Water pressure, or rather water in general is the same way. But how can you complain? it is still unreal to have running water, power, and internet here. Today we are going to go into town, the girls are going to get lunch, and Alissa an I need to mail our post cards out. Hopefully you guys will get them by the time i leave here, you really never know here. I'm getting off soon, but first I want to introduce you to a few of the kids. We can not put pictures up on blogs or mention the children's names because those sort of things have caused problems for the orphanage in the past. So when i talk about a child i will just refer to them with the first letter of their name, as the other girls do.

Baby C and baby E are the smallest babies here. Baby E has the most warm laugh, the largest brown eyes, and the biggest smile i think i have ever seen on a baby. Baby C is charmer for sure. We took baby W and baby S down with the older kids yesterday because baby S is moving up to baby B's soon. She did great, she was super warm and loving toward D. D has cystic fibrosis, she has to sit in her chair as she watches the other kids play. But when she smiles, it is the greatest thing ever. Baby J is one of the younger babies in baby B, the mamas all call him lazy, but i think he's just extra loving. He loves to be held, and cries when you put him down. He fell asleep while i was holding him the first day, he just wouldn't stay awake. Baby L came to Amani more recently and is still very small. She is another special needs child, are not entirely sure what her condition is, but i think the one thing i guess i am glad i can not explain to you is how hard it is to hold back tears when you work with these kids and know you can't take their pain away. It is more than challenging to see a loving God in that, but he's there, and i know it. He's reminded me several times since i've arrived. M is a slightly older, autistic boy, he can't really talk, but i think if we started to work with him, he'd be able to. He is also super loving, and he gives great hugs. Amani is an amazing place, and they love their kids here and go above and beyond what most orphanages here are able to. i'm glad this is where i ended up. if i could talk about in detail each one of the kids i would, but for now this will have to due, this entry is already way too long, and you should win some sort of prize if you made it this far.

i'll update this when i feel the least bit capable