Life: A journey with Jesus

We are here at Hope House and guess what? Yesterday was a school holiday! Well, as I recall when our girls were younger, school holidays meant sleeping in, having friends over, going someplace special, and possibly I would plan to get out of work early to have some extra time with the girls. Well, as I said, we are here at Hope House and it's not quite like that!

Yesterday we came prepared to provide a little change in the girls' routine. Don had taken candid snapshots of them the week before, cropped and printed them out, and we had them as a surprise for them. I brought along scotch tape, glue, colored paper and 'fiskars' scissors. The girls' eyes were wide open when we showed them their pictures and then their mouths fell open as they saw the arts and craft supplies! They spent the next 3 hours working on giving two bulletin boards complete makeovers! Their creative, innovative, and beautiful colorfully framed and matted paper picture frames were out of this world! The made us proud! Mid afternoon, Don popped 4 bags of popcorn and everyone dug in! There may have been no sleeping in, no friends over to visit, and no special place to go, but this school holiday was enjoyed by all.

Little did we know that this morning after 6:15 a.m. devotions it was announced that 4 of the girls did not have classes today as well. During breakfast at 7:00 a.m. it was decided that two of the high school girls would accompany Meyela to do the weekly shopping, the other high school student would remain on site to make dinner. We quickly came to understand the four girls who were on holiday, needed to be kept occupied! After all, no school is a special event in any student's life!

Out came the arts and crafts supplies again, and the girls were soon busy working on the updated birthday bulletin board, school folders, and giggling and chatting while praise music blared loudly from the CD player in the kitchen. Don and I spent time admiring their work, listening to them sing, and attempting to understand their chatter. Just try to imagine a school holiday at your house with 12 children, none of the latest electronics, TV, or any of the other 'babysitters' which seem to fill the closets in the homes in America.