Pray for Atlehang

It has been a long time since I've had the time to blog. It seems a bit daunting to even start again because I have so many fun and exciting stories that I wish I could have been sharing along the way. But it is very fitting and appropriate time to start blogging again because I know many of you pray for us and you will also pray for this little girl.

Atlehang was officially put into our care at Restoring Hope Village on March 28th at the same time she was admitted to the government hospital with a diagnosis of pneumonia but really her diagnoses could go on and on. Atlehang was referred to us through Morning Star Children's Centre and a social worker was willing to place her in our care and out of her granny's care.

Atlehang is 9 years old, only weighing 27 pounds. (Lindie, 3 years old, is wearing bigger clothes than Atlehang) She has been neglected for a while. She was living with a granny that used the foster care grant for gambling and not properly feeding and caring for Atlehang. Atlehang spent 20 days in the hospital and was recently discharged. After only being with us for 10 days yesterday she had to be admitted again to the hospital. We are praying this hospital stay isn't as long, but reality looks as if is might be as long or longer.

Mama Selina has formed a special bond
 with Atlehang that is heartwarming to see first hand. 

The doctors are currently uncertain of what is happening in her body but we heard a lot of speculation yesterday all revolving around TB issues. Her body has no immune system to fight anything.

Yesterday our housemother spent from 7AM-10:30pm at 2 different clinics and casualty (ER) trying to get her admitted. I spent a few hours helping with this making 2 trips to the hospital and taking them lunch and supper since the day was dragging on forever. Our newest short-term missionary, Abby, spent the last 4 hrs with them last night. Brian was finally able to fetch Abby and our housemother at 10:30 last night and Atlehang was finally admitted to the children's ward.

Dieketseng painting Atlehang's nails. 

We ask that you pray with us that the doctors will have wisdom and compassion in knowing how to treat whatever she has and that Atlehang's body will respond to the treatment. Also pray for her to have peace and comfort while at the hospital. We are only able to visit for an hour or little more in the afternoon because of set visiting hours at the hospital. And please pray for all of our staff at The Village as we try to arrange transportation and scheduling to visit Atlehang. 

Here are a few pictures of Atlehang during her last hospital stay.

We try to do a few fun things and shower her with special food like KFC and Pizza.

Here we had a little pizza party in her ward room and shared with her little neighbor. He thought it was the best.

 

Atlehang's little neighbor in the ward enjoying pizza with us

We didn't really know each other before the hospital but after a few visits we now know each other quite well. 

Dieketseng playing her guitar and the girls singing at the hospital

Birthdays and More Birthdays

We don't just celebrate our birthdays but we celebrate everyones birthday at The Village and we have fun doing it. Once a month we have a birthday celebration to celebrate those that had a birthday that month. We have found that individual parties for each child is a bit overwhelming and have decided that one celebration a month with cake, candy, popcorn, games and gifts is the best for everyone. We try to make it a special day where we all gather together to sing to each child and/or adult and have an organized game time included. When a child is new to The Village this will often be their very first time to celebrate their birthday and we try to make it special.

We want each child to feel loved, secure and special within our big family and we also want them to come to understand that they are special in God's family. Our most important responsibility at The Village is sharing God's love with each child and that includes teaching and showing them what it means to be part of a family. We aren't their biological family but we pray that they will come to know that we will always be here for them as their Heavenly Father is always here for them.

In June we celebrated Allison's 21st birthday. Allison is a very dear friend who has become part of our family. She has spent her last 5 summers with us and pours out her life to each child. She has become part of everyones family when she is with us at The Village. We are excited to see where the Lord leads her in the future and as she finishes her last year in college.

Ma Paddy, a dear lady who has become part of our family and blesses us with her talents and love. Paddy spends much of her time with us, the O'Tool family and the kids at The Village. Paddy always has sweets in her pocket for Liam and Lindie. She graciously gives of her time and resources by teaching our oldest girls how to make jewelry. We celebrated her birthday by surprising her with a cake on the 4th of July. (Her birthday is the 5th)

In August we were blessed to celebrate a very special birthday-Pops turned 76 years old. Pops and Nana are so very precious to our family and especially our children. Pops and Nana are our South African grandparents and they pour every ounce of love and energy they have into them. They give of their time by babysitting when I need to grocery shop, run errands, when we have teams or if I just need to get out. Our kids love being with them-actually they prefer them over us.

It is the people like Ma Paddy, Pop and Nana, and other local friends that help us carry-on our daily tasks and makes it feel like we belong in Welkom. In that last few years, we have really felt the love and connection of those around us locally that have given us the extra encouragement to keep going when the times get tough. God has given us these special friendships and it is so important and needed. We love you and Thank You. 

We also celebrated three special girls in August. Paulina, Lerato and Modiehi all had birthdays and they were celebrated in barbie fashion. We had a team from New Jersey with us to help us with the party and Mallory and Lauire planned the games. This was Modiehi's first time to have her birthday celebrated and to receive gifts. It was heart warming to see her face and to feel her appreciation. 

Mal and Laurie planned a little pin the tail on the donkey, musical chairs and an egg toss game.

As you can see, we have a lot of fun amongst our daily tasks in keeping everything organized at The Village. 

A barbie birthday cake for

Paulina, Lerato and Modiehi

Modiehi, Lerato and Paulina unwrapping their presents

Paulina and her new dress

Modiehi and her present

Papa Revival playing Pin the tail on the donkey

Face Painting

Nana and Pops gave Liam face paint for his birthday. Of course, Liam thought painting his face would be too messy but the other kids loved it. Brian had the honors of painting everyones faces. Liam preferred the pirate dress-up toys Meredith and Drake gave him, that required no mess. 

Meredith, Lindie, Kamohelo, Drake and possibly other kids worked diligently at making Liam many birthday cakes and treats out of mud. They all loved playing in the mud and being creative with their creations. The job was messy but they got it done. {And the mothers had a bit of laundry}

Camping Fun

Recently our tent has been the highlight during the weekends and school holiday time. We have the tent in our back yard (or back garden as Liam calls it) & all of the kids have been taking turns sleeping in it. With winter approaching, quicker than we like, I think the tent will be getting packed away for a while. But I am sure when summer comes in a few months, the tent will be coming out again for some more fun nights.

Tumelo

Early in February, while Hope Community Church team was here, we visited the Hospice Daycare again. The ladies from the team brought with them some great crafts to do with the kids. As usual we also played games with balloons, sang lots of songs and shared a Bible story.

(craft time)

(The first day I met Tumelo at Hospice Daycare)

While we were there, the head sister (nurse) talked to me about a little boy named Tumelo. His mother had passed away a while back and he has been living with an uncle since. His uncle is now ill & often in the hospital, has no income & is struggling to care for Tumelo. The sister was asking us to help them get a place for him at Restoring Hope Village. She had already been phoning the social worker & leaving messages but was receiving no response. I told her I would follow-up with the social worker & see what I could do. I could tell from being with Tumelo for just a couple of hours that he was suffering. He looked healthy and his clothes we decent but he had very bad behavioral outbursts. He didn't know how to interact with the other children, when he didn't get his way he would get into a rage & he wanted to be held all the time.

(each child received a beanie baby)

In the mean time for about the next 2 weeks, I also tried to reach the social worker but received no response. After being back to Hospice two more times & hearing from the workers that his uncle was deteriorating quickly, Brian and I decided to find the social worker in person. After a bit of work, we found the social worker and she even admitted she had messages from the worker at Hospice. She said she was going to get to his situation sometime but didn't know when. Brian asked if we could take her in our car to the boy's house but she said no. We then offered to bring the boy and his uncle to her office and she agreed. Our first attempt to fetch the uncle we found him gone and the neighbor said he went to the clinic. We checked back the next week and located him. Brian & our houseparents went to fetch the uncle and Tumelo and took them to the social worker. The entire story is way to cumbersome but it took about 6 hours to get this all accomplished.

In the end, the uncle & another uncle that came on the scene, wanted one more week with Tumelo. The social worker said that would be fine. The following Monday, Brian and I went back to the uncle's house in Thabong & fetched Tumelo.

Tumelo has been living here since April 2nd and is living with Papa Revival & Mama Phelisa with Kamohelo, Tumi, Paulina & Modiehi. Tumelo is adjusting to living here but he needs lots of patients and love from all of us. He has never been expected to obey anyone before so life here is a big adjustment. He is learning to live with a family & to behave like a little 3 year old boy should. This past Saturday night he camped out in our tent with Papa Revival and Kamohelo and he thought that was pretty cool.

(Dieketseng and Tumelo)

He has become good playmates with Liam and Lindie. We are thankful to have Tumelo here and we pray that he will come to understand about God's love at a young age.

(Uncle Brian loves giving rides on the dirt bike)

Sidewalk Chalk

We don't really have sidewalks here but we have lots of paving stones. All of the kids really enjoy being creative and drawing on the driveway. Kamohelo, age 8, had a fun afternoon making our driveway very colorful. He wanted to color the entire drive but he ran out of chalk. I guess I will need to buy 2 packages next time.

We Have 3 Children!

Yesterday as we were getting ready to leave for church we had one of those moments that made us realize we really do have 3 children. Life has been pretty easy up to this point with 3 kids. We were about 1 minute away from walking out the door for church when Lindie took the cap off a black sharpie marker that had a leak. She was wearing her ivory Christmas dress that is still soaking in hopes that the black ink will come out. Needless to say, I had black ink on me and daddy and grandma quickly cleaned Lindie up and changed her dress. Now we are out the door and onto the bus to take everyone at The Village to Church when Charlie decides to spit-up big time. He even managed to get the bus floor. I took Charlie back inside to do a complenoutfit change. Brian left with the bus and kids for church and Charlie and I drove separately. Yes, today is the first time it felt like we had 3 kids that are ages 3 years, 2 years and 3 weeks old.

Before spitting up on his outfit-3 weeks old

I managed to get to church in time to see the children's Christmas program. They did a great job. This is Drake, Komahelgo and Liam dressed as shepherds. You can also see Meredith dressed as an angel.