Our new team members experienced two Kirov rites of passage today...the roads for an hour & half to get to Velikoretskoye orphanage and meeting the orphanage director, Georgy! Their excitement about getting to the orphanage far outweighed the bumps and height we got in the back row, and literally being in the principal's office!
At the orphanage we broke out into family groups. Sheila and Wally Hammond were in a team. Kathy Carter, Melanie Adams and Lindsay Evans were with a larger group. Marca Quinn joined Nick Starke in the same group she was with last year, and Pat Starke and Stephanie Mutert worked together in the smallest family group this year. We made name tags and played games together, while trying to get to know the kids in our group.
In Marca and Nick's group they asked the kids if they could go anywhere or see anyone which would it be and why? Every single child answered 'My parents.' Marca wanted to share that this is exactly the reason we come...not to be replacements for their parents, but to bring the hope and love of Christ to them. It was a heartbreaking, but poignant moment in their room.
We had a very good welcome from the kids, for those who are visiting their sponsor kids for the first time as well as those who have been before.
At lunch Kathy, Marca and Lindsay learned the hard way that not all granulated white objects served near tea are always sugar. That made for some riotous laughter from the translators, as well as the cook, and the rest of us!
Rotations went really well in the afternoon. Especially when Pat and Wally put on African wigs (Sheila wore one in craft as well with beads that rendered the teacher speechless when she walked in the classroom!) Stephanie, to fit in with Pat and Wally, wore her Liberia dress from Africa for our lesson to start off our world theme week. The kids laughed with us and had a good time learning about an African proverb and how it was similar to the Bible verse in Ecclesiastes that two are better than one.
Little did we know the paparazzi had followed us to Velikoretskoye, but when the kids got ahold of our cameras none of us could see past the flash bulbs. They did do a great job getting the priceless shots of each other we couldn't have gotten without their expertise. Tomorrow, however, we will be explaining to them that we will be the masters of the cameras.
We ended the night laughing together as a team...but laughed even harder when we realized all the under 31 sat on one side of the room and over 31 sat on the other...just friendly banter that are team has gotten really good at together! We are very much looking forward to our team effort tomorrow, and of course being with the kids again!
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