Facing the Son

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Last week we officially found out where we will be placed
starting in January. One team heads to Swaziland,
one is staying in Jeffrey’s Bay, and my team will be in Port Elizabeth. It won’t be a hard transition
from Jbay to PE, and I am excited about the chance to continue working at Algoa
through next semester. There are 12 participants and 3 leaders in PE with me.
We aren’t sure where we will live yet, or what ministry is going to look like,
so please be in prayer for those details!

I have been doing short music sessions with some of the
higher functioning patients at Algoa for the past 3 weeks. We’ve worked on
skills such as verbalization, socializing, counting, animals, following
directions, fine and gross motor skills through activities like singing, dancing,
and playing instruments. The patients enjoy it and I have gotten a much better
response than I expected. Their good response makes me happy and sad at the
same time. Of course I like to see fruit from these efforts, but what it really
tells me is that these patients are not being given the opportunity to reach
their full potential. If they were given more individual attention and more
challenging experiences, I think they would be able to do so much more. But
because Algoa is understaffed, its just impossible to give each child the
attention he or she needs.

After the music sessions with the higher functioning
patients, I usually take my guitar into the wards and play music for the other
children. Most of these kids are immobile and stay in beds all day long. I
can’t imagine living life trapped in a bed, staring at the same four walls 24
hours a day. Some of the patients barely respond at all when I play and sing.
Some get really excited and smile from ear to ear. The nurses think its funny
when I bring my guitar through the wards, but I think they like it too. Since
we’ve been coming twice a week for a while now, the patients and the nurses
have gotten to know us and feel more comfortable with us. The smell doesn’t
bother me so much anymore. Some of the kids that made me really uncomfortable
in the beginning, because of physical deformities or difficult personalities,
have become my favorites. Algoa feels more and more like home for me, and I
know our efforts are not in vain. One of our leaders, Caroline came with us for
the first time last week. After talking with her about our work there, she
began to tear up and remarked that these are the ones that she can picture
Jesus spending time with, the forgotten ones. I completely agree. These really
are the forgotten ones, the outcasts, the abandoned, and the fatherless. The
only ones that give them love and attention are the nurses. These nurses are
angels. You can see that they love these children as their own. They work so
hard physically and emotionally. So this coming Monday our ministry team
decided to have a day of appreciation for these wonderful ladies. We are going
to bake some goodies and write individual notes to each nurse on staff. It
won’t be much but hopefully they will be encouraged and know that they are
appreciated.

We stay pretty busy around here. It’s easy to get
overwhelmed, but time is flying by. I can’t believe its almost Thanksgiving!
Our group is preparing a big meal to eat together on Thursday. And then we get
a long weekend with Friday off. It will be hard I think, since this will be my
first Thanksgiving away from home. But I hope we can all take time this week to
be truly thankful for the many blessings we have.