We will return in October!

Well, we have finally settled on a return date. We were in the process of committing to stay on as Directors of the children’s home until next December, until we realized that the airline will not extend a return ticket for more than 1 year. We will have to return by October 17th. For a while we were wondering if we would go home in May or stay for much longer, but we don’t really have a choice and it feels good to have this settled. Now when I day dream about a DQ blizzard or movie theather popcorn I know that I only have to wait 7 months!

Here is Ned with his girls. Vivi and Victoria are twins and they are sporting their new dresses that a mission group from a high school in the states brought. Things with the children are going well. We have become very close with them. Our house mother left so it is really just the two of us taking care of our little family of 12. They call us mommy and daddy and we really ARE their parents. I can not even imagine how hard it will be to leave them and to explain why. If we could just take the children and the landscape we are living in we cold be happy here forever.

Unfortunately, there is more to the operations of an orphanage than the children. There are all of the adults that have their fingers tied wrapped up in the business one way or another. They all lie, they all cheat, and we are getting really tired of trying to conduct everyday business like this. The latest discovery is that most of the kids are not actually orphans. Their mothers are living nearby in the village and have told the kids to call her ‘auntie’ when/if she comes to visit. We are essentially teaching them that if they can pull this off they will be able to live in this nice house and eat nice food. We are also teaching them how to lie when they take their final examinations at school and the teacher tells them how to fill in the answers. We have a little boy that is behind in his learning, if you show him the number 7 he is likely to guess ‘G!’ or ‘Red!’. He came home from school with final examinations/report card showing 90%. Others have told me that this is common. If you are paying their school fees don’t you want them to come home with high marks? The whole bit about earning the marks and learning the material is completely irrelevant.

Ned continues to help manage the construction of the next two homes. The guy who was supposed to be doing this also just left, so Ned finds himself making the long trip to town to buy materials almost every day. The days of us sharing the housework, taking the kids for walks together, and napping in the afternoon are long gone….