Lice, Fun and Tears.
On Friday I spent 2 hours of my morning combing a little girls head with a lice comb. Her head was infested with eggs and honestly, I would have done it 33 more times if need be. I loved doing that. It has to be a terrible state of living to constantly itch and scratch at your head. It is also an endless battle because with 34 kids, little treatment and lots of mattresses Canica is basically a paradise for lice. It's one of the things I pray about when I pray for my loves. That it would end. It's such a little thing but as I have learned and been reminded of recently, God cares about the little things too. I spent the rest of that day just loving my babies. It's what we are there for. One on one individual love is not something the kids get to receive everyday because of how many children are there versus the amount of staff. I don't mind at all being the mommy or sister that is so desperately needed. That's for sure. :) On Friday afternoon, we had beauty day. This is one of my most favorite days because the girls get to get pampered! I spent the day painting 12+ girls nails over and over until they finally stopped messing them up. I was lucky to have my best friend there to help this year. :) I love the looks on the girls faces when they see themselves all dolled up. We had so much fun on Friday! Everyday at Canica is a good day. On Saturday we had fun also just loving the kids and playing all day. Ale also got mad at me on Saturday. She hit one of the girls on the hand and I corrected her and told her to say sorry. This was tough because she doesn't have really anyone to correct her. (Another reason I just want to take her home forever. I want to help her be the best she can be) Luckily I had Paco around to hold her and tell her that it's okay. (She loves Paco and Mateo a wholeeee lot)
On Sunday the church threw us a fiesta. I LOVE fiestas :) We always have so much fun playing games. This year we did a sac race and a water ballon game that escalated very quickly. Before you knew it we were all throwing water balloons at each other instead of playing the game. It was one of those moments that you laugh so hard that you start to tear up and want to just pause. Love.
We had floats and the children gave us presents which were SO beautiful. They were boxes with a group photo of the orphanage on the front. The photo was taken three years ago, the year I first came and fell in love. That made me so happy. Talk about blessed my soul. Really. After that we hung out and then had to leave. While we were leaving a girl named Sulmi was holding into Katie and wanted to get a hug from me. I took her in my arms and the waterworks started. It wasn't light crying either.. It was the sobbing, can't breathe, can't think or stop kind. She wouldn't stop. Katie and I tried to comfort her as best as we could but she was upset.
I can't remember if I wrote her story in my last post so I will share it now: Sulmi came to the orphanage about a week or so before we got there and came because of abuse. Her mother would hit her with large sticks for no reason. She has a younger brother named Clisfer as well. Sulmi was his care taker. I actually talked to Sulmi by myself today (Sunday) and asked why she was at Canica and she told me "because my mom hit me, I had no food and I had no clothes." Wow. They also said that you could scrape the dirt off of the kids when they arrived.
Knowing that Katie and I are probably the only people in Sulmi's and Clisfer's life that have ever made them feel wanted is beyond words. I can't explain how that makes me feel besides that it pushes me to make every child in the entire world feels wanted. Babies need to be wanted. Babies need to be loved and babies definitely need to be kissed.
This event though, does not make leaving easier.
Today we had a beautiful breakfast provided by Pastor Marco. He is such a wonderful man. He loves The Lord so much and is a great example to follow. I love him a lot. After breakfast we took all of the kids to get new shoes. This was crazy haha. I loved it though. I stayed in the shoe store the whole time and quickly fit all of the kids with their new shoes. It was fun! It's a treat for them to get new shoes because many of their shoes are hand me downs. We went straight back to Canica after this and had to quickly say our goodbyes. I had wrote all the girls that I am close to letters and passed them out. We were saying our goodbyes and I was pretty impressed. No tears. On my part at least. I hugged my best Guatemalan friend, Iris, goodbye and they started... But only a little small bit. Then I look down and see my baby, my beautiful daughter... Bawling her eyes out. Then they started. I kind of got the "can't breathe" kind of tears but I wanted to be strong for them. Delia, Ale, Evelin and I all stood there holding each other for a few minutes as we sobbed and said our goodbyes. I hate goodbyes. Although, these are only see you laters.
If I could tell you only one thing that God showed me on this trip it is this: This is not my last time at Canica. It's maybe only the start of much more.
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