Todays program

This morning we had a school program planned. A school group with about 60 kids were coming to the ship and we had planned a program with dance, games and songs. They were supposed to be here at 10 am, we had a meeting to discuss details and were ready at 10 am and waited for them. It started to get later and later, and at around 10.15 one of the girls called the school to ask where they were, and it turned out the school thought the program was going to be next thursday!! Well, next thursday we've already left Nassau, so they can't come then! She checked here e-mail if she had been wrong about the date, but the schools confirmation was really for today, so the school just didn't check the date and thought it was next week.
So there we were, the whole team all 'dressed up' for the kids program and there was no program :-(

After lunch we (that is a group of 10 persons from our crew) went to an orphanage. Last tuesday we had about 25 kids from the orphanage visiting us and we did a great program, including a tour around the ship and a lunch on board with a gift for every child. The kids were between 5 and 14. I asked the manager if they have small children as well and she said they have a baby/toddler group. I then asked if I maybe could visit that group of the orphanage with a couple of crew members and she asked me to call her to set up a date to come out and visit them.
So I did, and we went there this afternoon.
She came to pick us up with a mini buss with just enough place for all of us, and after arriving at the orphanage she first showed us around. The place really looked nice! It's quite modern and this was not a real poor orphanage. It's good to see that the kids have a nice place to be.
After the tour we went to the baby/toddler group, they just woke up from there afternoon nap. We got to help giving them lunch and played with them, sang and danced.
We had a great time and the kids loved playing with us.
There was 1 little baby girl, around 12 months old, they I noticed. I asked to feed her and they let me. Afterwards I took her out of her chair and she just wanted to be close to me. Whenever I wanted to put her down, she would crawl straight unto my lap again and lift up her hands.
The little girl obviously came from a home where she's been abused, since she was very blue on one side of her face :-((( Many of the children are not really orphans, but have been taken away from home because they get abused or just can't live with there parents for another reason.
It's really really sad, but good to know they have a good place to be, a place where people take care of them.
When we left, I had to put down the little girl and she wanted to stay with me and started crying. It broke my heart and it was really hard for me to leave :-(
I keep thinking about this little girl.
Marthe also came with our group and really liked being there with the little children.
My 'dream' (or at least something I've always thought about) of working in an orphanage or having an orphanage somewhere has only got stronger.
I can really picture us in a foreign country sometime in the future doing mission work again, but just in another way.
I don't think we will continue working for OM, but we definitely want to do something like this.

It's bedtime now, will put todays pictures from the orphanage on our picture-site (vliet.net/logos2) tomorrow.
We have community devotions at 8 am tomorrow which I'd want to go to.
So for now... good night... and please leave us messages or send emails :-)