thankful.

What a week! One day we were celebrating Thanksgiving and the next I was getting some major sunburn. This weather thing is still something I am not used too.

Lesotho does not celebrate Thanksgiving but on Friday we had some missionaries over to celebrate it anyways. The US embassy made turkeys available for the people who wanted them so we even got to have turkey! The food was delicious and the fellowship was wonderful. I will say that even though we had the traditional food it did not feel like Thanksgiving at all to me. For the past 18 years I have done the same thing  for Thanksgiving. Spending time with family, playing dress up with my cousins, and going through black Friday adds are all the things I am used to. I was able Skype and see most of my family which was really nice. Thanksgiving was different this year. Not bad, just different. I spent more time spending time with the Lord and thanking him than worry about the food or traditions. The thing I am probably the most thankful for is my family. Cliche, I know. Through every step of this process my family has been so supportive and loving. Even though I am far away I have never felt left out or like they don't care. I have been blessed beyond belief. I am also very thankful for my "adoptive" family here, the Geurinks. They treat me like I am a part of their family. They have helped me through many of the hard things about being here and laughed with my through the joyous times. This year I have also found I am thankful for a lot of little things. Things that I am just used to but things that most of Lesotho doesn't have. Things like plumbing, electricity, running water, a safe place to live, money for food, a vehicle, and carpet are rare around here. What makes me so special that I get access to these things? Lastly, I am thankful for the kids I get to play with everyday. They have taught me, tackled me, peed on me, snotted all over me, hugged me, kissed me, danced with me, sung to me, and loved me. There was a day last week where I got bit 3 times, peed on once, and got a chunk of hair pulled out of my head. The kids were fighting a lot that day which meant a lot of kids crying. Even though it was a pretty rough day, when I came home at night I could not help but be thankful for them. Nothing they do to me or to each other could make me love any of them less. I now have a better understanding of Christ's love for us. Nothing we do could separate us from His love! I am thankful for that. Click HERE to see what all of American volunteers are thankful for this year.

On Saturday me and my room mate, Kristen went on a little adventure. She had a package in LadyBrand, South Africa ready to pick up and Geurinks couldn't go out of the country because they are in the process of getting more pages for their passports. So me and Kristen went by ourselves. It was Kristen's first time driving in Lesotho/South Africa and I must say that she did pretty good! It was pouring down rain but she still drove like a pro. We ended up getting there after the post office closed which was a big bummer but we were still able to do to Living Life which is a cute little coffee that feels like "pinterst-land" to me. We were able to reflect on our experiences so far over a delicious meal. After Living Life we went to Spar which is the grocery store. The main reason I wanted to go was to get pretzels because you cannot buy them in Lesotho. YUM :) After our little visit into South Africa we came back to Lesotho and went to the mall to see a movie. Overall, it was a really fun day to just get off campus and have time to reflect together about our BG experiences.


Today, we were spoiled. We got to go swimming! That is still crazy to me...swimming outside 3 days after Thanksgiving?? Oh well, I am not complaining. :) I underestimated the African sun today and did not wear sunscreen. I have not worn any since I have been here since I really don't mind getting sun burnt. I usually get a few good burns every summer so I am pretty used to it, but today I think that I overdid it.

ALL THE LETTERS ON MY WALL....THANK YOU!!! 

one of our many fly killing adventures...(this is my room mate Kristen :)

 jello and marshmallows...a thanksgiving must. 

 trying my first litchi on thanksgiving 

 highlight of the day: buying a fan. I was only a little stoked. 

 SKYPIN THE FAM ON THANKSGIVING

our thanksgiving meal

Mercy :)

pretty proud of her pie

a thanksgiving sunset

learning to love tea (Living Life)

movie theater....an interesting experience

RAINBOW

DRIVING LIKE A PRO!

swim.swim.

love these kids. 

tropical :)

This week I got two e-mail updates from families that have adopted from BG since I have been here. Let me tell you, those e-mails MAKE my day! I was so glad to hear that they were both doing well and settling into their new lives. God is so crazy good.

peace and love.

twins.

TWINS!! Twins arrived at Beautiful Gate last night! Me and Mercy were sitting on the front porch watching the sunset and talking about heaven when the social worker came and told us about their arrival. The twins are about 2 months old but still only around 4 pounds. They are so tiny!! I heard they were premature, and since they are so small only a few of the house mothers are allowed to hold them at this point. For the past couple weeks we kept hearing that they were coming but it kept getting pushed off. The nurses at the hospital have been on strike lately the twins were not getting cared for properly. When we found this out our social worker and nurse worked to get them out of there as soon as possible. I am so thankful that they ended up here at Beautiful Gate! After just talking to Mercy about heaven and then getting to meet the twins, I was so excited for heaven where there are no malnourished children. Please pray that they GROW and get to a healthy weight soon!

This past week was very bittersweet for me. November 14 is the date I would have gotten home had I not extended. I do not regret extending my stay, it just was strange to think, "I could be home with my family and friends right now." On the 14th I was sitting with "my boy" on my lap trying to imagine saying goodbye to him. It just reminded me that my time here is not about me or what I do, but rather about loving Christ and loving these kids. This week has also made me very excited for the next 4 months. Its 4 more months of holding babies (rough, I know). 4 more months of hospital runs. 4 more months of beautiful African singing. 4 more months of adoptions. 4 more months of being called, "Ausi Paigie."  4 more months of waking up on weekends to the sound of laughing and screaming children. 4 more months of pure joy that only comes from the Lord. 4 more months being in awe of the Father.

Hey. Thanksgiving is this week. WHO KNEW? Not me. It honestly does not feel like the holiday season at all here. The weather here is very very warm which makes it very hard to want to wear ugly Christmas sweaters and all that jazz to get in the holiday spirit. This Thanksgiving will be a special one I think. I am excited. I will have to tell you about how it goes next week!

Sorry for the short update this week.


peace and love.

PS. CONGRATS to my little brother who made the Freshman basketball team this week!

winter?

I have been to the hospital 3 times in the last week. That is probably a new record. No, I was not the one getting treated but rather I was taking kids in to see the doctor. I have been going more and more lately and the last two times I went were very interesting experiences so I am just going to tell you about those a little.

Last Thursday around 10AM the nurse found me and asked if I could go to the hospital with my house mother and a couple kids right away. Shortly after I agreed my house mother got a phone call that her daughter at home was sick and not doing well. We had not yet left for the hospital and she was torn on what to do since technically since the other house mother is gone she can't leave. After about a half hour of discussing and trying to figure out scheduling stuff my house mother went home to take care of her daughter and I ended up going to the hospital with Beautiful Gate's nurse instead. We had two kids that were just very sick and needed some medicine. The boy I was holding was in terrible shape. I have honestly never seen a kid so sick. He smelled like a dead animal (not even kidding) and just laid on my chest nearly the whole day. In the car I kept my hand on his chest to be sure I could still feel him breathing, that is how sick he was. He is also HIV positive so his immune system was just having a really hard time fighting off the sickness. In America, this boy probably would have stayed overnight in the hospital for a few days. But, In Lesotho they have so many sick people from HIV/AIDS that they don't have room to offer that option to everybody. We were able to leave with some medicine for him which is good. Today (Monday) I went to go check on him in his bed and when he saw me he smiled at me. It seems he is on the right track to get better which is very encouraging since he has been staying in bed all day for over a week now. I was talking to the nurse and she said that if he did not have the proper medication and care he could have very easily died from the flu he caught just because he was HIV positive. That still just shocks me. That a child could die from the flu because maybe his mother could afford the medicine for the child or the transportation to get him to the hospital. I don't think I will ever take for granted the wonderful doctors and facilities we have in the US again. Please pray for this boy to be able to return to full health soon

Today I met Beautiful Gate's nurse at the hospital with the oldest boy at Beautiful Gate. He has been placed to be adopted along with his brother and now they are just waiting to be picked up. When you ask either one of them about their new home they get so excited they can hardly contain themselves! Its rather adorable. It was just me and him today so I spoiled him a bit with some snacks and I brought a notebook and markers for him to color with. When I took out the notebook he immediately started writing and drawing. First, he wrote the numbers 0-10, and then he wrote his name, then he drew a snake. He surprised me when he gave me the paper and pen and asked me to draw and mother and a father and a baby. I took the paper and drew some pretty sad looking stick people. He then excitedly said, "Now a brother and a sister!!" After I had finished I showed him and he put fists in the air and yelled, "YES!" That moment stuck with me through the rest of my day. That was what a family was supposed to look like in that boy's head. A mother, father, brother, and sister. I was so excited for him and that he would get a mom and dad very soon and seeing his enthusiasm made my heart melt. It also made me think of how rare it is in Lesotho to have both of your parents and all of your siblings alive due to HIV/AIDS. I am not going to spit out statistics at you because it is depressing and until you see the faces of these people and children it won't really become real. The place I have been seeing the Lord the most lately is through these adoptions and the hope and joy that go along with that. Every adoption ceremony I witness is like a little bit of heaven in a world filled with chaos.

Friday night there was a CRAZY hail storm. It only lasted about 15 minutes, but after those 15 minutes it looked like a Michigan winter out my window. The hail was so loud on my metal roof that I could hardly hear myself think. Through my window I could see the Beautiful Gate kids watch the storm through their window. They watched with awe and laughter while I was pretty much freaking out in my house. After the storm there was water everywhere. Most of the campus with flooded with water. There was a little stream out my back door from the water that was draining in from the community. Thankfully there was no major damage. After the storm hit, Bryan came over to make sure I didn't have any flooding or anything. He mentioned that he wondered how many kids that were abandon yesterday and died from the pelting of the hail or from the cold. We decided that we just can't think about things like that but instead be thankful for the 55 kids the Lord brought here that have shelter over their heads and people loving them. When I skype people from home and talk about parents abandoning their children, they often just default into thinking that the Basotho are terrible people. So, I am going to try to help you understand their situations and the choices they are forced to make. ....Let's say you are a young mother. Your husband gave you HIV and he has recently passed away because of it. You recently found out that you are pregnant. You live in a 15ft by 15ft tin shack. You don't have running water or plumbing but sometimes you can get electricity if you have left over money. You have three children that are in school so you are able to work in the factories during the day. You walk two hours to and from the factory everyday since you can't afford to take a taxi. You know you can't work full time and raise a baby, but if you quit your job at the factory you have no income to raise and feed your soon to be 4 children. When this baby is born you have a choice to make. You can quit your job and starve your whole family so you can stay home and care for the baby. You can pull one of your kids out of school to care for the baby.  You can take your child to a care center but that means a lot of paperwork, complications, guilt trips, and taking time off of work. Or, you can abandon your baby and keep getting by like you are now. Can you even imagine having to make that choice? The Basotho aren't bad or mean people....they are just forced to make some nasty decisions. I hope this gives you at least a little bit more of an understanding.

out my back door

                 

                                                                   out my front door

I will leave you with these beautiful words of Jesus from John 16:33

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

"TAKE HEART" FRIENDS, JESUS HAS OVERCOME THE WORLD!!!!!!!!

peace and love.

blood and guts.

Well folks, the Lord has done an amazing thing in my life. He has soften my heart towards stitches. That's right...stitches....like the medical ones. I have never had stitches but I would cringe just thinking about them and look away and run when I saw someone with stitches (rude? maybe...). This week a boy from my house fell and got a pretty good gash in his forehead. It was bleeding pretty bad and the staff were a bit hesitant to jump in to help him because he is HIV positive. The started yelling for the nurse and she came running. She scooped him up and ran him to the clinic on site at BGate. While she was running she yells, "Paige! Come help me please!" So I followed her to the clinic thinking, "Like I am going to be any help...the only medical training I have had is a babysitters class through the Red Cross and that was like 6 years ago!" When I got to the clinic she handed off the boy to me and I just calmed him down while she got the stuff together to do stitches. The first thing I realized about this boy is that he was not crying. At all. He was a little shaken up and in a bit of a tizzy but he was not crying. He settled down pretty quick and I went in the other room to lay him on the bed so the nurse could put the stitches in. She asked me to hold him down while she put the stitches in. At this point I was probably in a worse mental state then this kid was. I am sitting there thinking, "I am going to pass out and this kid is going to be screaming....Lord please just miraculously heal this kid right now so I do not have to witness this!" As she started cleaning him up and began stitching him up I just kept talking trying to keep him (and myself) distracted. After the first stitch the nurse goes, "Paige, just look up! Its not that bad." So I did. And it really wasn't that bad. I even found it kind of interesting. I will tell you people, that was a work of the Lord. I have no doubt. Through THE WHOLE process of putting 3 stitches in, this kid just sat there. He didn't cry. He didn't move. He was just chillin...WHILE SOMEONE WAS SEWIN UP HIS HEAD!! Anther work of the Lord. That day he ended up pulling out all his stitches TWICE so the nurse had to put them in again TWICE. The nurse was not too happy with him.
....
And while I am on the subject of medical stuff I will tell you about my experience with boils. FUN FUN. The Australian volunteer nurse joked with me for a long time about how she was going to get me to help her with some "blood and guts!" So, one morning she caught me and said, "Hey Paige! We have a few kids with boils, would you like to help me pop them?" While my mouth said, "Sure!" my mind went, "NO NO NO NO NO NO RUN AWAY FAST!!" This nurse is quite the character and was going on and on about how she loved popping boils. Well, whatever floats your boat, I guess. I will not get into all the gory details but I will just say this: it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, I was pretty amazed with the human body and how a little bump could hold so much puss. The first one was successful but the second boy we looked has had a very deep boil and it had popped during school that day so it was already a mess. Again, I will resist getting into details but I walked away from that day pretty proud of myself for getting out of my comfort zone a bit and getting into some blood and guts!

Today are the elections. Sadly, I was not on top of it so I did not vote.  I will say that it is very nice not having to see the annoying adds or get the random phone calls telling you who to vote for. This past Sunday in church we had a time of prayer for the US elections. At first I was a little confused because we are in Lesotho so why should it matter? But, the rest of the world really does watch the US to be the example in a way. So, who we choose to be our leader says a lot about our country. I just pray that whoever wins the elections will look to the Lord for guidance as he leads our country so that when people look at the US they might be able to see a glimpse of Christ. I will say that I did not pay attention AT ALL to election stuff this year because I knew I had missed my chance to vote. I encourage you all to vote today and be thankful for this wonderful right we are given.

peace and love.