Christmas in July

Christmas has come early in the Reynolds’ household and Santa’s elves came in the form of Grandpa and Grandma Pagett, and Aunt Bette and Cousin Ali. They arrived in Jinja this morning, with entire suitcases full of sustenance for us! We all cheered with joy at two rolls of soft toilet paper, poker chips, granola bars, Lysol wipes (well, I actually was the only one who cheered for joy over the wipes, but I whooped it up loud!), bags of each of the boys’ favorite candy, and the grand finale…ingredients to make the boys’ favorite no-bake cookies…Special K Cookies—only Grandma would do that! I’m not kidding when I say it was like Christmas, we were ecstatic as we sat in their hotel room and ogled the goods. We had packages of gum, protein bars, top ramen, crystal light packets…it was a plethora of comfort items that we are now devouring! Hayden received a bag of caramel Ghirardelli squares, and I seriously think he is going to sleep with the bag because he thinks someone is going to take one…he wouldn’t share with Tim, and I caught Tim with his nose in the bag, just savoring the smell…Hayden did finally take pity on poor Dad and gave him ONE…only ONE caramel square (actually Hayden just read over my shoulder and informed me that Dad actually stole his caramel square, he didn’t have permission…) Bransen has already eaten an entire box of Mike and Ike’s. I had a lovely cup of tea and read the magazines my Mom brought me…life is good. It’s such an interesting change in perspective for us at the moment. I mean seriously, three weeks ago, not a single one of those items (well, not totally true, the Special K cookies would have done it) would have elicited any type of excitement. Even candy, my kids can usually take it or leave it—and now they whooping it up over two rolls of soft toilet paper.

We have tilapia fish growing in our backyard…eight have died but Tim thinks it’s because of the trip over to our house, etc. The experiment continues! Today we went to church, and then after church we went and visited Amani Baby Cottage…amani means peace in lugandan, and peace is what you feel, even in the midst of 59 toddlers and babies. Amani was started by a young woman from Texas, who is a follower of Jesus, and loves African babies. The stories that could be told of these precious children and how they have been rescued from abandonment and given a hope and a future are just amazing and fantastic. We arrived just as nap time was ending, and poked our heads into different rooms to look at the children. We reached the three year old boys’ room, and as we passed by, a steady stream of three year old boys came running out of the room, and literally jumped into our boys’ arms. They crave attention, they wanted to be held, they were adorable, they loved my boys and my boys loved them! I attached myself quickly to a nine-month old little girl named Grace. She was HIV positive when she arrived, but she has been given medicine and she is now HIV negative. She is adorable, huggable, happy…ahhh…I want to take them all home with me!

Amani Baby Cottage was called by the Jinja Hospital (remember the one with no running water or electricity?) to come and get a preemie baby today that had been abandoned in a school yard and found crying and bloody by a stranger early in the morning. Since the hospital had no incubator, they were keeping the baby warm by placing a paraffin lamp next to it in the crib…oh my word! (Just a little side note, you can bet that we will advocate to GE passionately for some incubators at this hospital—and knowing GE’s commitment and big heart, I suspect that in not too many months, Jinja Hospital will not have to place paraffin lamps next to their babies to keep them warm.) The Director left to pick up the baby, and came back with the baby and two toddlers. As she was gone, the police called her because they had two abandoned toddlers at the police station, and didn’t know what to do with them, so Amani opened its doors. The ladies at Amani Baby Cottage are heroes. Today we are taking them beautiful little hats that have been knitted by a lady from America, as well as a suitcase full of new baby clothes.

Sorry it has taken so long to get this blog up. I’ve been busy playing poker and eating cookies! Life is good.

Ciao,
Cheri