The Kids

I can honestly say that I am not naturally a kids person, so I do not often get attached to children very easily, of course there are exceptions. However, I found myself drawn to them so quickly. They are the sweetest, respectable bunch of kids! I am so happy when I am around them! There are 24 children that live here, mostly girls. They range in age from 3-16. All of their stories are different, but they share a common thread... each story is heartbreaking. I look at them and for the life of me cannot understand why their parents or other family members did not want to care for them. I will not get into the details of their individual situations now, I plan on creating a page called "Meet the Children", where I will post pictures and create a profile of them, so details of who they are and how they came here will be included. Hopefully I will start posting on that next week. Anyway, the older kids carry a lot of responsibility and it is good. They are each being trained to be leaders, not just followers. They do their own laundry, work in the garden, keep the place clean and orderly, and can even lead their nightly devotions if necessary. They have not had it easy. All of them are of Burmese or Karen decent, some are mixed with Thai. With that being the case, they speak Burmese and Karen. In order for them to be able to attend school here, they had to first learn to speak Thai. Initially, they were home schooled until they at least understood Thai. Once they did, they began to attend school, but they have more work to do than the other kids. Just because they can speak Thai, doesn't mean that they could read or write it, so extra time had to be put into that. They are all doing well with their Thai now, and a few of them can even translate Thai into Burmese when necessary (the house parents are not fully fluent in Thai either). Even though they are disciplined and responsible, they are still kids, which means they do get in trouble.... but I never really know whats going on seeing they get scolded in Burmese! They are quite talented... they sing, dance and act. I tell you, Asians love them some "action songs". That means they love putting movements to song lyrics, kind of what we do with children's songs, but they do it to adult worship music. I will record one and post it for you all to see. They are a bit shy with us still at times, but they are slowly coming out of their shells. When they are in school, they are pretty busy. They get up at 5:30 am to get ready and have breakfast and morning devotions. Then they are off to school at 7:30 and return by 4:30pm. Then the older boys work the garden while everyone else starts homework. Dinner is served anywhere between 5:30 and 6:30, then back to homework. Around 7:30-8 they have night time devotions. Afterwards, those who still are not finished with homework get back to it while the others have a little free time before going to bed at 9pm. Well I can't think of anything else to tell you about them right now, but more info about each child is to come! Check back tomorrow for another post!