Safety

On Friday, I had a school meeting with teachers and parents, so I was a little late getting to Beautiful Gate and my friend,Terp, arrived before I got there. I decided to go on a hunt for her because I had not seen her for 6 months, but I was intercepted by one of our staff who was admitting a new child. The new child is an older girl, maybe 4ish, and her mother is not well so she needs a safe place to be while her mother heals. I like when kids come to Beautiful Gate for that reason because it is so wonderful that we can provide a safe and loving environment for children whose parents are too sick to care for them (I do not like that parents get sick only that we can come alongside them in a tangible way). Then when their parent is feeling better, the child can return home and enjoy being with their healthy parent.


I helped decide which home to place the child and we brought her to her new home. I think we accidentally scared her a little because then Terp and several other volunteers happen to come into the home and the girl was frightened by our loudness as we greeted one another as well as fear from our whiteness :) She went to the Basotho staff and was comforted and we all gave her some space so she could adjust to her temporary home.


I did not see the little girl yesterday, but today I stopped by playgroup and she gave me a big surprise. Several of us volunteers went to playgroup and we all were chasing kids and letting them tackle us. I had a few who were having me chase them and then this little girl circled around my waist and wanted me to chase and tickle her. She was smiling and laughing and stayed by me for quite awhile. I had such a nice time with the kids today but it made me feel very special that this new little girl decided that I was trustworthy. It must be so strange to be in a new place with strange people and yet, because the other kids trust us volunteers, she decided that we must all be safe.


Hoping that other new kids will be able to adjust well and feel safe like this little girl and I am once again thankful that God has made a safe place like Beautiful Gate for kids.

Updates of BG and life

Wednesday, we welcomed a team from Australia. Allan has been here for a week to help prepare everything for this team as they are going to be putting the main finishing touches on the Beautiful Gardens' rental housing project. These men are going to be putting in kitchen cupboards and counters as well as wardrobes and other counters in the 7 smaller rental houses. I am so excited for the work that they are doing and it is making the project feel a lot more real. Bryan was able to go out to their work site and see them hard at work yesterday.

Here is an update on Beautiful Gate. We are currently at 60 kids which is a bit low for us, as we have the capacity for 75 kids. I think that this lower number is a blessing so that we have more time to really focus on the kids we have. We have many volunteers right now so we have been able to specialize a little more on specific needs of children, especially those with special needs. Our soft play room for kids who are over 6 months up to walking age has been very successful. BG kids are crawling and walking faster and those who are not are able to be singled out for special attention. Our Ops Manager, Brittany, has been putting together activity centers for the older playgroup kids for days when we have 4 or more volunteers in the playgroup. I am amazed by all the changes that have happened in the last year,

My kids have been attending their new school since mid-October, Elijah has had a big adjustment to attending school and I really feel responsible for his frustrations. There is just such a big difference in homeschool work and expectations and those of a classroom so he was not as prepared as I wish he would have been (I also realize he is technically a middle schooler so some of this may be age related too), I know it will go well and he will adjust, but please pray for him to accept the differences without taking them personally, The girls are adjusting great and doing very well in their new school. They are eager to learn and to please their teachers which is helping them to make their adjustments well,

I am teaching science on Tuesday and Wednesdays to the 4 older kids at the school and I am now attending a ladies bible study on Wednesday morning which I have wanted to do since we moved here, but was too busy teaching, I work at BG on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays now and it is going well. It is not hard to find enough to do, it is harder to stick to the hours I am trying to be available to BG, to the school and to bible study. Everyday is different and a lot harder to stay on track than when I was locked in a room with 3 kids homeschooling :) I am enjoying being a part of school as well as being a part of BG more regularly and am thankful that God has sent 2 wonderful teachers to help.

I am sure you noticed, but after 41/2 years, I have changed my blog's look a little. I updated a few prayer requests too. Hope you enjoy the new look!

Conversations

One of the benefits of sitting in a baby house and feeding my special little friend, is getting the chance to talk with some of our staff. The other day, I got to talk to one of our relief workers whom I have never had a long conversation with before. She was telling me about her family. She is married with 2 kids and her husband is working at a factory and he does not make much money. She said that it is hard to have enough each month because her income in unpredictable (relief workers do not have set hours and only fill in when we need them). Then her next sentence was," But we do not have to worry because we serve a mighty God who provides for us." Life can be so hard but her faith in God is so strong.
She shared that her mother used to be a baker and now is suffering with diabetes and needs insulin shots each day. She has 6 siblings and they have all agreed to give their mother M100 a month to help her get medication and food each month. What a beautiful picture of families taking care of each other. What a way to honor your mother in her old age. I was so blessed by this conversation and I am thankful that we have women with such giving and loving and trusting hearts working alongside us here at Beautiful Gate. Not to mention her wonderful smile which makes everyone feel welcome.

Frustrations turned into hope

Last week was one of the most frustrating weeks I have had in a long time. I took over the nursing duties of BG for a few weeks while our nurse was on vacation and then last week one of our volunteers went away and I was put in charge of feeding one of our kids with special needs. This child has been on a feeding tube and we are trying to get her to swallow food again in hopes of getting her off the feeding tube. I have helped a few times in the past and she has done ok, but last week she was apparently on an eating strike. For 6 days, I would go to feed her at 10,12, 2, and 4 and she would refuse to swallow and would spit most of the food out or hold it in her mouth for 7 minutes before spitting it out all over me.
I wasn't frustrated about getting spit on, but I was so frustrated because I really want that tube out so she can live a "normal" life. I want her to be able to enjoy food and be able to have a normal schedule because there will not be much in her life that will ever be "normal." I love this little girl so much and I have been praying for her for a long time and it just made me sad to see her struggling and being defiant about one of the most basic things I could do for her.
It turns out that she was getting a whole bunch of molars and was teething last week. I never thought of that possibility when I was feeding her because she does not open her mouth a whole lot and when it was open, I took my chance and shoveled some food or milk in. Yesterday, I was able to feed her again because her helper was out of town and she ate very well. We decided to try buying baby food instead of mashing things up for her because she has a huge gag reflex and the baby food is perfect. I may have to buy a special blended to get that same consistency but we will have to go week by week with this little girl. I at least have hope again that we will be able to keep her eating.
Even if last week felt like a waste of time with the eating part, at least I was able to hold her and love on her a little while she was teething (even though I was oblivious to her pain). Please join me in praying that she will continue eating well and that we will not have too many set backs. Please pray that she will increase her desire to eat so we can give her enough food to make her grow and be healthy without her feeding tube. We have hope that God will bring healing to her and that He has a very good plan for her life even if we cannot see what His plan could be.

Christmas Joy

This Christmas season was one filled with a lot of joy. This year was very low in donations of toys and clothes, but God provided a few families at the end of the year who were able to donate toys and money for Christmas outfits for all of the BG kids. One of our volunteers, Brittany, and I went shopping for 61 outfits! It did not seem like a big task when we started, but picking the right size and style for each kid was a pretty big task. We really enjoyed ourselves and seeing the kids showing off their outfits to one another on Christmas day was pretty special.
Christmas Eve was the day we celebrated Christmas with our staff. My mother-in-law, Mary, sent us a new devotional for December and so Bryan shared the devotions for the 24th of December. It was a very good message to help us begin our celebration. We gave each staff member a mug from Holland Christian's last team and a Jesus Calling devotional from the Corley family. They were very thankful and were also thankful because we had many donors come alongside BG in 2014 and we were able to give each staff member a little Christmas bonus in their pay check. They work so hard being the hands and feet of Jesus to the kids here and I thank God for providing the funds we needed to give them a little extra appreciation.
Christmas day was a very hot day and we had a neighbor donate 2 bouncy houses for our kids to jump in for the day. It was chaos and fun to watch the kids and the staff jumping in the houses. I have never heard so much laughter at BG. When it got too hot, the staff added water in the bottom of one of the slides and then all the kids got naked and climbed into the water. For the first time in 4 years, our staff did not even make the kids go inside for a nap, they all stayed outside for the whole afternoon jumping, laughing, eating watermelon, getting doused with the hose and throwing each other in the water (that was staff on staff as the kids were already in the water). I spent an hour supervising the kids in the water and got a nice sunburn which is so opposite of the Christmas weather we used to have in Michigan!
Then our final moment of joy came in an unexpected visitor. We were just finishing a scavenger hunt for Elijah's present when we were told that Lucky was on campus to visit us. It has been over a year and a half since we have seen him. He is 17 years old and tall now - crazy!!! We had a nice visit and it was such a fun surprise to see that he is ok and looking pretty healthy. I am thankful that God has been taking care of him and that He brought him back to BG so we could visit with him again. It took me a long time to give him his soccer ball, but Aaron Wildschut, I finally gave him the ball you sent back to Lesotho. It has been a great week, full of joy and I am thankful the Jesus came so our joy could be complete.
Happy New Year everyone!

Faith and Mercy's Random blogpost :)

"Africa is a pretty nice place to live. The amazing sunsets and beautiful views, I am pretty sure everyone would want to live here if they could live the life I have. I have found that it is very nice to see how the volunteers act when they reach BG. The churches and very wonderful and the Basotho love the little that they have. I just like that because they love what they have, but some people just want more and more and more. I am looking forward to Christmas but it is hard to get in the Christmas spirit because it is so HOT! Love to the whole world, Faith"




"Africans really celebrate for what little they have. Even though they are poor they celebrate. They are really creative too. They find food somehow and sometimes some and the kids come to the fence and ask for papers so they can color. I do like to play with the BG kids because they are a lot of fun to play with. We have a new school and it's really fun. We have some friends with us in our school. I like to play at school a lot because we play tag and all those fun games. It is nice to know that people love each other. It has been really fun playing outside. I got to hold some snails today and they were really slimy. Faith and I had the snails race and it was funny because the same two kept winning (they had 10 snails in the race). Today I have been having so much fun and I love it here in Beautiful Gate. Love, Mercy"

4 Year Anniversary

I am sitting in my office and looking out of my window and what I see is so precious. Little children playing, laughing, singing and a few who are crying because let’s face it, when 35 kids are together crying will happen! One of the older boys was lifting up one of his little “brothers’ and helping him into a swing and then began to push him. This view never gets old. This life never gets old, frustrating at times, but never old.

My kids and I during one of our first hikes in December 2010.

Bryan and our kids looking over a cliff in December 2010.

December 6th marked our family’s 4th anniversary here at Beautiful Gate. It is so hard to believe that it was 4 years ago that we stepped off an airplane and were welcomed to our new home. We were so anxious. We followed God’s leading to come and now He would have to help us and lead us into our new life. We kept hearing people saying names that were too hard to remember and greeting us in a language that sounded nothing like we had ever heard before. Would we ever figure out their names?? 4 years later we know all 45 staff by name and probably 59 out of 61 kids by name. There are always one or two babies that I forget the names of.
It was never in our plans to become the directors, but God had a bigger and better plan than we could have imagined. He would raise up supports for us around the world not only to support Beautiful Gate financially, but also with an endless supply of volunteers and teams. We could not have done it for the last 3 years without that constant support and with God’s faithfulness.
We have seen children come in to BG extremely malnourished and then thriving and hitting milestones. We have seen children come in who were too sick to recover and then they were loved and cared for until they were embraced into the arms of Jesus. We have seen mothers, whose children were lost, come to Beautiful Gate and find their children and rejoice with tears of joy. We have seen so many families come to us childless and leave with a beloved child that is a perfect fit into their family. We have also seen people from all over the world come here and experience a peace that is indescribable and leave forever changed. Best of all, I have witnessed my own children learning the true meaning of love and compassion.
We have been adopted into the Beautiful Gate family and it is a beautiful family to be a part of. Our children have aunts and uncles and big brothers and sisters all over campus. They also have lots of little brothers and sisters on campus that they can play with. My only regret it that we have been too busy to really learn enough of the language so that we’d better be able to communicate with our African Family.

It is so hard to believe that we are over half way through our commitment now, with only 3 years remaining. It is hard to think about a day when we have to leave so we will not reflect on that. Many of our staff say the same thing, that they do not want to think about us leaving them so they refuse to talk about that too. God is so good and I know that He will guide us and give us His wisdom for our future. I am thankful for the last 4 years and look forward to the next 3 years. No day is ever the same and it will be an adventure for our family and for Beautiful Gate!