1 month to go!

I am growing more and more excited about the fact that I will be home in a month and its only 2 weeks now until David gets here. Yet, I am also growing more and more decided of the fact that I don't really want to leave this place. Its become much more a home than I thought it ever could be and all these strangers that I live with, I realized recently that they've become more like family than anything else.

 

I thought when this time came that I would so anxious to leave, but I find that while I am counting down the days until I am back with the family, I wish that I had a little more time here.

I'm going to miss my babies!

The next week is going to be an exciting week as :

• We have a new baby girl coming in the next few days.
• Two court dates which means two babies could go home in a month or so.
• A birth family will be coming. Its always interesting to see the resemblances between baby and parents and see how they respond the the little person they have given up. Some parents cry, others would rather not even be here. 
• Bev and Ted get back from China where they've been for a week.
• Ava's adoptive parents come and before David gets here, they will be back in the States with their new baby girl.

The remainder of my two weeks is going to fly by. Excited, yet not at the same time. 

Some highlights of the past few weeks would be:

We had a group of 12 musicians come to the Home and give the kids a little concert. They were all brass and sounded super cool! Bev sent us over to watch as well and we had a great time with the kids! The played "Do-Re-Me" and the kids all sang along in Chinese while we of course, sang in English. So neat to hear that familiar song in another language. When the show was over the players let the little kids try the instruments! 

 

One of the other highlights for me was that Ava started smiling. She is 2 1/2 months old and up until recently, despite my best efforts I was only ever rewarded with a yawn or two. But the other day she decided that smiling wasn't all that hard and since then has been grinning away. The best part of this little story is that I was the first person she smiled at. There is something so incredibly special about getting a babies first smile!

There were other highlights too, but this will have to do for now. We're being informed by the noise in the nursery that nap time is over and there are babies to hold and love.

Taiwan 10.07 Highlights

• Staying up late with the girls (ie: 2am!) discussing everything under the sun.
• Visiting the Cultural Center, again and discovering that it just gets better.
• Ritz crackers with brown sugar candy in between.
• Overcast skies for 3 days and much cooler weather. So cool in fact that we all donned jeans and some of the girls are even wearing jackets.
• Meeting Timothy's parents and watching them fall in love with his big grin.
• Having the Georke Gang here for 10 days from the States. Yeah for clean windows and all the help they have been!
• Introducing the family to Elijah and finding that they think he's as cute as I do.
• Finding my camera again after 24 hours of not knowing where it was.
• Watching the watershow at night down by the lake.
• Finding that I really do miss Ted, Bev, and Anna who are gone for a few days. What am I going to do when they are gone for over a week?
• Discovering that being sick abroad is twice as un-fun as it is at home.
• Building deeper and much more meaningful relationships with people on so many more levels than I thought could/would happen.
• Riding in a taxi twice within a week! 
• David comes in less than a month. There is so much here that I am excited for him to see.
• Finding out that Ava's parents are coming soon, and Kwen has his courtdate soon too!
• Meeting a family of giant snails and finding that I'm not the only one who thinks snails are kind of cute.
• While sitting on a wall, the four of us girls counted that we had our picture taken at least a dozen times within a half-hour by people who were pretending to be watching the other scenery. Hurrah for being the circus side-show!
• Loving the babies more and more . . . 
• Thrilled that I only have a month left, yet sad for the very same reason.

Mussings at a half-way point.

Now that I have successfully completed the first half of my time here at the Home, I thought I should update the blog with a little more than the quick updates I have been doing. I had very good intentions of being a very regular poster, but like at home, life keeps sneaking up on me and giving me more interesting things to fill my time with. Babies are napping now so I have the perfect opportunity to fill you in on some of the details of life here in Lu-Dong, Taiwan.

I have to admit that the first two weeks I was here, I thought I was going to die. I went through a lot of emotions those first few weeks and I'm daily grateful that I made it through that time. I guess I knew that it would be hard but I really had no idea what it would be like to be achingly homesick for family and friends and everything else familiar and comfortable. Because absolutely nothing here is like anything back home, for someone who likes things exactly the same, it really hurt at first. But now that the people I am with are no longer strangers and I have people to share this experience with, life is so much better. After a month and a half I have become familiar with the faces and the routine here so much so that its beginning to feel not just like the Home, but like a home.

We currently have 9 babies here which is a lot less than I was expecting to be here. When I first arrived in August there were 15 babies, but we've had 9 go home and 3 more arrive since then. But having a fewer number babies did something for my pride that needed to be done. I came with the idea that they needed me and I was going to be a hero for the struggling and overworked orphanage. Instead I find that I could go home and I wouldn't be missed and sometimes having too many volunteers in more of a hassle than anything. Ouch! But what I have seen the last few weeks is that I came here to serve and that doesn't have to be what I thought it should be. I find that with fewer babies to look after, I have a greater capacity to look for the other areas that I can serve in. Sometimes that means just being a friend with the other homesick volunteers, or being a peacemaker between parties that don't always understand one another, other times its just laughing and giving hugs to the orphanage kids. I don't always know, but I do know that when my attitude is to serve, the opportunities are there, and the opportunities are many.

On a daily basis I'm reminded of God's creativity is so many different areas. He is very gracious in the small gifts that I am blessed with in a never ending flow. Each day something small and new will come along to remind me that I'm not here alone and I can get through another day because this is God's plan, and not mine. Each one of the babies here is such a precious little person with unique gifts and laughter that make them easier and easier to love. I knew I would love them, but had no idea how much I would grow to love the little smiles, giggles, and noises that each one of them makes. I had no idea how my heart would thrill at the excitement they have at seeing me when I get them out of bed each morning. I sort of imagined that after a few weeks I would want a little bit of a break from holding babies and that I would be going bonkers from crying babies and dirty diapers but have been pleasantly surprised to find that God created a very unique feature into babies. He made them impossible to grow tired of. When I get back from an outing, one of the first things I want to do is gather a baby (usually Cade) into my arms and cover his little face with kisses.

I'm glad that I've reached the top of the hill and can begin the countdown until David gets here, but I'm equally glad that I still have half my time left. The longer I am here, the more I love Taiwan and especially the people. I've been extremely blessed by the girls I work with, Showhwa, and Bev, each in very different ways. I'm so thrilled that I get along so well with each one of them, I had little visions of being stuck here for three months with people I really disliked, because that would be the best thing for character growth. God saw otherwise and has made it possible for me to grow in ways other by trial!

I realize this isn't so much of an update as to what I've been doing, but how I've been doing. It seemed a little more appropriate for me to put all this down, than a day to day explanation of whats been happening here, since thats easy to do with some quick pictures.

Thank-you to each and everyone of you who have been following the blog, commenting on facebook, the endless supply of wonderful emails and phone calls I get. . . you've made me feel blessed to have you in my life, I am excited to come home and see you all, but for now, I'm excited to remain here and enjoy the experience as completely as I can.

Taiwan 09.10 Highlights

I could tell you what has been happening. But its easier to show you . . .

1. Abbey left on the 31st of August.

  Bev, Abbey, and Showhwa

2. Mei-Li went home to the States with her Mom and Dad

Mei-Li and Showhwa

3. Gabrielle arrived the 1st from Missouri

Gabrielle and Kwen

4. We spent the day out last week and found the best Italian Restaurant, spaghetti and garlic toast for $3!

Jennifer and I at said restaurant.

5. Visited this Taoist temple near the Home (its the largest of its kind in Taiwan) with . . . 

...Jennifer...

and Gabrielle.

view from the temple . . . 

I try to bike around this lake everyday. In the background in Lu-Dong, 

and to the left of that main road you can see, just hidden from view is the Home of God's Love.

there have been other things happening of course! But those would be the highlights of the last 10 days or so. Its hard to believe that I am almost half way through my time here at the home. Its flying by much faster than I thought it would . . . Tomorrow we get a new baby, my birthday is on monday, another volunteer comes in on Thursday . . . it will be busy again!

Thanks for keeping me in your prayers, they are greatly appreciated.

The Home of God's Love

Most of the older kids, a few of the babies, and the rest of us at The Home of God's Love.

I'm so grateful for each and everyone of these people. the laughter, the love, the fellowship even though the langauge barrier doesn't allow for much, its amazing to me how much you can communicate with touch, gestures, and a smattering of one language or another. I love being here, and thats mostly because of these people.

A very long Post . . .

I thought it might be a neat idea to share with you all my day at the home. I'll be writing it in bits and pieces as the day progresses, rather than try to sit down at the end of it all and recount all the little details, because this life here is very much made up of little details. There  isn't a lot of exciting or large things that happen on a daily basis, but I still love it anyways.

Yes, you heard it right. I'm learning to love my time here. Maybe not as much as I loved being home with my family every day, but I'm loving it in a very different way. I hope you understand what I mean when I say this, but I very much feel like I have a purpose here.

7:00 am : This is actually the latest I have gotten out of bed in the days that I have been here. Its been more like 6 every morning, but I guess this must mean I am finally settling into the time difference. While it hasn't been a huge adjustment in terms of jet lag and all that, I have been a little more tired than I usually would be at home. I dressed and then came downstairs and headed to the front room where I have stowed my computer. Its out of the way of the normal commotion and its good for a little privacy during the days. Abby and Beth are on early morning shifts, which means I technically don't have to be around to help with babies until about 8, but if too many of them start waking up, I will go to the kitchen and start helping. Right now there are only 3 babies awake. We have 14 here right now. They seem to do really well with keeping relatively quiet until 8:30 or so when we will feed them their first bottle. The home's smallest baby is on the couch beside me sleeping, he is less than 2 weeks old and certainly sleeps a lot! I can hear a baby fussing in the babies room, but he's not to loud, so we'll leave him for a bit.

There are 3 adoptive couples here right now, plus one set of grandparents. Its pretty rare that we have more than one at a time, and even to have one only happens every few weeks. Its pretty busy here right now, but on the one hand its kindof nice because all these people make feeding time a lot easier. There is an adult for every baby that needs to be fed, which means we have a lot less screaming babies.

8:30 Babies are all up and for the most part they were reasonably well-behaved before feeding time. There is always one or two that don't do as well as the others. Cade and Lillian tend to cry 30 minutes before breakfast, but usually the others are relatively good. We had a lot of hands to feed this morning. Something I need to make sure I don't get to used to, once all these families are gone home (Beth is also leaving on Wed.), there will only be three of us volunteers for the 10 remaining babies, which isn't bad. A few weeks ago they had 28 babies, I couldn't imagine that!

 The smallest baby at the home, about 2 weeks old.

We  feed babies, change diapers, and then play with them on the floor, in the walker . . . Because they were so many people to feed babies, feeding time went by really quickly. It a blessing and a curse having this many people in the house. There isn't much room (the home is tiny) and with all the babies fed so quickly, the day tends to drag. But . . . because there were so many people, Abby came up with the brilliant idea to take a walk! Yeah! It was the first time I had been out of the house since I got here, so I jumped at the chance. We took three babies and it was quite the experience. It started pouring on us while we were half-way to the town (5 minutes away). The locals had quite a laugh at us as we came charging down the road seeking shelter. The stand we stopped at was really nice and the owners were quite helpful. They didn't understand english, but they liked to try and laugh with us.

 The street about 2 minutes from the home. At the end there is a small lake, and along the left there are all sorts of small food vendors and bicycle rental shops. 

 This is the road that the Home is one, about 50 ft up. We had just turned off the road that had all the shops here, you should be able to get an idea of how close everything is!

 

 Here Abby is ordering some crape/icecream thingy for us. She can speak a little Mandarin so she's rather useful to have along for something like this. Plus, she has been in the country long enough to get an idea of what food is good, and what really isn't!

 Kristie is volunteering at the home for 2 weeks. Here she is with Lillian enjoying the thingy that Abby ordered for us!

 And here is the thingy. Its wrapped in a crape, and then filled with something akin to shaved peanut brittle with three scoops of weird icecream It was good, but very different. It cost 30NT, or less than a dollar. We had the option of putting coriander on it as well, but wisely passed on that addition. 
 

Abby and Naomi.

Coming back from the walk. This view of the home is about 25 feet off the road.

11:00 We came back (rather woefully) for lunch-time with the babies. Again, feeding time was pretty quick. But for some reason the babies were really quite noisy. Some days they settle down for a nap really quickly, but I think that having all these people in the house might be throwing their schedules off somewhat. For lunch Ted is bringing back McDonalds for the the 'foreigners' but I am going to resist. As much as I really, really want to go get a hamburger I know that if I don't choose to eat the Chinese food at this point of the 3 months, its not going to get any easier. That, and I really do want to try to conserve my money :-)

I'm really not sure what was on the lunch menu for the chinese half of the orphanage, but I accidentally skipped lunch, so I finished off my meager to begin with stash of granola bars and headed upstairs to skype home while the babies napped. Its a really strange feeling knowing that I'm half-way around the world from the people I love the most. But it was so good to talk to Mom and David. I'll let you in on a little secret, I am really, really, really, looking forward to David getting here!

2:00 Babies start to get up! We try not to feed them until 2:30, but again that doesn't always happen. We are dealing with babies here :-) And so begins playtime . . . Bev came down during this playtime and conversation started flowing between her and the couples. She seems to be quite the talker. Bev takes night-shifts so we don't see a lot of her during the day, but do get to spend time chatting with her in the evenings.

 Four of the boys during playtime. They love playing on the floor because its cool!

By 5:00 all the babies are very ready to eat, and then straight to bed. Abby and I stayed back while the rest of the group heads to the other side of the orphanage to eat with the older kids. Squid, grass soup, rice, chicken, were all on the menu, but I have to admit I skipped the squid. A few of the babies slept really well during this naptime, others really didn't! I had to hold Kade during this time, he tends to be a fairly fussy baby, but he's from a differant background and I will have to forgive him for it.

After dinner, there is devotions, also with the older kids. The orphanage is divided in two, we usually stay in the one half during the day, but we eat with the older kids. Devotions are really interesting. Sometimes they sings choruses and sometimes hymns. I try to sing along if I know the songs, its an interesting experience singing along with the kids, when its in another language! The older kids hold the babies during this time except the two littlest and also give them their bottles. Its usually around an hour. Its good, and tedious all at the same time. Once they are done, they older kids help us put the babies to bed which can be a little bit hectic! It was pretty good tonight. Its Father Day here in Taiwan so there was a little extra presentation by the smallest of the kids. They sang and gave Ted some pretty cute cards.

Its now 9:00 and all the babies are relatively quiet, I'm enjoying the cool of the evening and getting ready to go to bed. Days are long, and I find that by this time every night, I'm pretty ready for bed! I'll take a cold shower which I have decided is the best part of every day. For those of you who know me well you will know how unlike me this is, I love HOT showers. Here in Taiwan, thats not even an option.


I probably won't update like this again in a while, its a pretty long post! But it was fun, I wanted to let you know what I expect on a daily basis.

The Home of God's Love

Home of God's Love, Lu-Dong Taiwan

I want to tell you all about something very important that is going to happen to me quite soon. Over a serious of rather fortunate events I have been blessed with the opportunity to go to Taiwan in August to serve at an orphanage in Lu-Dong, The Home of God's Love. I will be gone from August 3 to the middle of November. There are children of all ages at the orphanage, but my responsibility will be primarily the care of infants (along with 3 other volunteers). THOGL has at this time 22 infants that need looking after. It will be challenging at times, but I am excited to see what the Lord has in store for me. Its been a miraculous journey up to this point, just how He has opened doors and allowed for this opportunity to come about. I would appreciate prayers not only for myself over the next few months, but for my family and the orphanage that I will be volunteering at.

If you have any questions or are interested a little more in the THOGL, I would love to hear from you! There are some links on the sidebar for those of you who want to look through pictures from other people who have travelled to the orphanage and back. It really gives you a good idea of what life will be like there. Once in Taiwan I will still have access to Internet, so please feel free to keep in contact, any and all news from home will be an encouragement!