Starfish, Zoo, and Nelson Mandela!

We are absolutely loving being in South Africa at the Door of Hope! I was reading in Hosea 2 earlier this week and it painted a beautiful picture of how God redeems each child and claims them as His own and loves them without ceasing-

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor (meaning trouble) a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth...And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord." (vs.14-20)

Seeing each baby that is here and the hope they have in receiving forever families makes me recognize the Lord's unending love, saving power, and hope more than ever! In fact, 2 of our big babies are going home today!! Praise the Lord!

There have been a few changes in our schedule since we last updated you! I (Katherine) am now working in Starfish! Starfish is a group of 9 babies that are sick and/or developmentally delayed with special needs. We do some therapy with them every morning, have ball time, music time, and time outside in the sun. We end the day with a baby DVD, like The Wiggles or Praise Baby. It's a fun time to just sit and cuddle as they are getting ready to go to bed. I am absolutely loving it and all the kids have already captured my heart!

On one of our days off last week, we went to the Johannesburg zoo with Zoe, a volunteer from England and one of our baby boys! Since it is winter here, we had most of the place to oursevles! We had a wonderful day wandering around the park looking at all of the animals. They were all pretty active and so fun to watch. The baby boy we took with us is always so happy and absolutely loved the 4 on 1 attention!

When we got back to the Baby House, we were exhausted from a long fun day. As we were hanging out upstairs fixing dinner, we discovered our 4 oldest boys in the bathroom shredding toilet paper. They looked so guilty when we found them, but it was hilarious! I absolutely adore them!

Yesterday was Nelson Mandela day! It's a public holiday here, celebrating the 92nd birthday of Mandela. The community is asked to do 67 minutes of community service in honor of him. We had TONS of visitors and the ministry was so blessed with mountains of nappies (diapers), food, clothes, and money to spend as we need. The babies were overwhelmed at the 100+ visitors we had throughout the day, but they loved the one-on-one attention!

I can't believe that we only have 2 weeks left!! Thank you so much for all your prayers!

Love, Katherine, Mary, and Sandra