The Walk

We walked through our forest today, the little boy and I. He chattered in his clear, feisty voice while we made our way to the vegetable garden. He gasped with delight when he saw a bright yellow pineapple. "Oh pineapple! My best friend!"
"Smell it." I held it out for him and his little nose wrinkled with pleasure. "Just imagine yourself munching this on the beach," I said. He giggled and hugged the fruit when I handed it to him.
"Take it home," I said. He suddenly turned to me and hugged me and his spiky friend tightly: "I love you SOOO much!"

Relief

A few weeks ago I went on my knees and asked my Father in Heaven for help with the Pre-School and Aftercare. I was feeling so overwhelmed. Two hours later there was a knock on the kitchen door. It was a young trained doctor on holiday from the Netherlands.  She came to ask whether she could be of help on the “Mission”. Her knock on the door reminded me of the verse in John 14: 13 and I write it in Dutch as my prayer was answered in Dutch:  “En wat gij ook zult vragen in Mijn Naam, Ik zal het doen, opdat de Vader moge verheerlijkt worden in de Zoon”.

Our young helper has been of great help since then and I am so thankful for her presence and support to our teachers.   Since Monday the Aftercare has exploded in numbers (don’t know the reason for it) and without her help we would not have coped.  Besides working hard to keep all the children meaningfully engaged on a playful Friday afternoon, I also had to keep a zillion energetic and ravenous boys from wrecking the guava trees into stumps.  Their hunger for a fresh, unripe guava spurs them on to keep going for more. “Mummy, some even eat the guavas with those little white worms in it.” Hape (our young 6 year old neighbor) says he saw them eating it like that!  Laura’s brows furrowed in a knot as she tried to imagine herself eating a guava with worms hiding as pips.

Oliver’s illness disappeared as the chicken bone stuck in his throat got dislodged. He has since disappeared with the Mama he adopted.