I am falling in love with ethembeni.

Today was simply AMAZING! First of all, I just want to put it out there that I am beyond blessed with the group God has placed me with. I love that I get to go and spend all day with them: Cynthia, Eli, Alyssa, Alex, Rob, and Kailey. So today was a great day because as soon as we arrived at the family center, it felt so comfortable to right away go into the playroom and greet and play with all the kids! The kids were so excited to see us and we felt the same way about them =] It is so exciting because I am starting to remember their names and call them by it when I am playing with them. I feel like it really personalizes my relationship with them when I can call them by it also. All of them melt my heart so much and they love to just sit in your lap and cuddle right next to you. I can tell that they are just soaking up all of this attention and it feels so right to give them an out poor of love. One of my highlights this morning was playing wish a girl named, simanthanda I believe, and as I was carrying and walking around the room with her, she fell asleep with her head nestled in my neck. I melted right then and there haha! So today we played with them for a few hours and then we got some serious work done.


One of our goals for the day was to take pictures of all the kids so that we can print them off this weekend and decorate them all over the walls. So we accomplished that task today also. It was a great day of bonding and developing a deeper connection with these kids. I am really starting to care deeply for them and it is only the second day. I can only imagine that my love for them is going to grow more and more these next 3 weeks. I love seeing their big beautiful smiles on their faces! The darling girl to the left's name is Sisanta (sisa for short) and she is a crazy girl, but I adore her!!)

One of the projects that ethembeni wanted us to work on was clearing out one of the storage rooms to make it a therapy playroom in the future... The only issue is that this room is also their storage room for a lot of miscellaneous items. Because they always have stuff in here, it has not been able to be utilized. So today, we had a big clean out and organizing day of this room and another storage room and tried throwing a lot of unnecessary items away and making room in the other room. So we made a lot of progress with organizing and trying to open up a room for them to use in the future. Also the other project today was organizing the office area, so a few of us worked on that too! After working on this for a few hours, we ate lunch, and then went straight back to playing with the little munchkins!

This boy in the picture is 17 and goes by the name, "church," because he wants to be a pastor one day. He is a fun and upbeat guy! I am excited to get to know him and a bunch of the other older kids these next few weeks!! He asked if we could take a picture together and was all happy about it too! It was super cute!

A fun encounter that I had with one of the girls out by the playground, miyabonga I believe, was that she started playing fun games with me one on one by clapping our hands together and reciting a song as she did it. She was teaching me how to do it and then taught me a few other ones. Even though I couldn't understand her from the language barrier, we still were able to laugh and get to know each other by being silly. I really loved this.

Playing and interacting with the kids and people at Ethembeni has been more fun and precious than I could have ever imagined. I am so blessed and happy that God has placed me here! I could not have asked for anything better than to serve God's children and alongside brothers and sisters in christ wanting to be servants to glorify God's name.
Love, Jamie
ps. This boy in the picture below's name is spesihile and I adore him so much! Ok, I adore them all.. I just wanted another excuse to put another darling photo of one of our ethembeni kids!! : )
Prayer Requests: Pray for endurance again and also to continue utilizing the time we have when we are at the site to make progress on projects, for all the kids and staff's safety this weekend and that we will all be healthy when we see them next Tuesday. Also, to continue recognizing where our fulfillment and strength is coming from and to lift up Him in all ways! Thanks so much!!When it came time to say goodbye as we left the family center, every kid was waving goodbye!