The greatest gift of all and a rather large Christmas miracle!

What am amazingly blessed week we’ve have here at the village. It’s been one mad dash from start to finish but I’ve enjoyed every second of it! Monday was an absolute nightmare as I had to pop into town to do some last minute shopping for the village. Even at 8.30am the car park was full. It was bedlam inside. The shelves in the supermarket were just about empty- I struggled to get everything we needed! What should have been a quick in an out job took me til 1pm to complete! I was shall we say a little stressed when I arrived back at the village! Anyhow, most of Christmas eve was spend wrapping more presents and sorting all the other presents into boxes for each house. I knew that the children would be getting quite a few presents from lots of different people but seeing the amount of gifts each house would receive just took my breath away! I cannot stress just how blessed we’ve been this Christmas and how grateful we are for any gift, large or small! I then go to be Father Christmas in the evening dropping all the presents off at the houses after all the children had gone to bed. It was so lovely to know that in the morning the children would all pop out of their bedrooms to find lots of presents under the tree- we had told them they were getting 2 presents when in fact they actually got at least 6 presents each! In the morning I went around the houses early to film some of the newer children opening their presents- for many this was their first experience of Christmas even though they are older. The reactions were all different. Some went crazy and were jumping up and down so excited by all the gifts. Then others were so quiet because they were so overwhelmed by the whole thing. Either way I was so overjoyed to be a part of the whole experience. I spent most of the day with the children going from house to house. Not a single child was disappointed with their presents. Each said thank you to me for the little gift I bought for them all. The appreciation was huge- we’re raising them to be such grateful and polite children! They truly are amazing! I had to put quite a few toys together- a beauty dresser, a shopping trolley (which turned out to be really difficult to put together!!!), a kite, a car garage etc. I was quite the handy woman with my little tool kit (which I borrowed from Robbie of course!). A of yet I have heard of no breakages, everything works everyone is happy. What made the day extra special was the fact that all the children that are old enough to understand, know what Christmas is really about. They know that they have actually already received the greatest gift of all- of course our Lord Jesus Christ. In all the chaos and confusion no-one lost sight of the miracle that was the birth of Jesus Christ. We also had our own Christmas miracle here at the village, which happened on Boxing Day. One of the little boys who is 2 had suffered horrendous abuse before coming to the village which left him with a horrific herpes viral infection in his lower region. We know that the herpes virus is very difficult to get rid of and were told that as his immune system got stronger that the infection would slowly but gradually clear up. Clearly we’ve been praying for healing for him ever since he arrived as his life must have been so horrid and stressful for him. Well on Boxing Day his house mother went to change his nappy and found that the infection had miraculously cleared up literally over night which by worldly standards is impossible! God has performed a miracle with our precious little boy. He is completely healed and there are no scars! It truly has been a miracle so we are so overjoyed by the news! Praise the Lord for he is so awesome and wonderful and performs miracles each and every day to those to believe and pray and trust in His word.

We had a new arrival this week in the form of a little 4 year old boy. Both his parents died of AIDS related illnesses and his Grandmother died last week and his Grandfather can’t take care of him anymore. The little boy has just turned 4 but wears clothes for 6-12 month year olds. He is so small and underdeveloped (like a lot of the children here) and was so distraught that his Grandfather was leaving him. He screamed and screamed when his "papa" left. The Grandfather said that he knew that he couldn’t provide for the child anymore and because he loved him so much (which was very apparent from the way they interacted with each other) he felt that he should be placed in the village and in such a loving and caring environment. That was a very brave and noble thing he did for his Grandchild. A 9 month old baby also arrived this week, however she is only here temporarily as her mother is going for chemotherapy for the next three weeks and can’t look after her. Again you could see the love between mother and child. It is so nice to see that some people do actually care for their children in a community where there is so much neglect and abuse.
We had a little outing also at the end of the week to keep the children entertained. We went to the gorge which is very near to the village and had a walk and little picnic- such a small event but so significant to the children!