My visit to South Africa part ONE

I left Seattle Wa. around 7:30 am December 3rd to a place I knew little about. I along with 6 other people who felt the calling to visit Durban South Africa, not just visit but to run a Holiday camp for hundreds of 5-6th grade children and assist in a transition home for babies (orphanage). Words can not even describe the wide range of emotions that go along with being where we were! First of all we had traveled a total of 29 hours! (that in itself is quite an experience)-and then we get to a country that is quite a bit different than the" burbs" of Seattle! I did think that working with the 5-6th grade students would be my strong suit-and although I loved them and thought they were the most amazing set of kids-I completely left a HUGE part of my heart at Ithembalethu the transition home for babies that have been abandoned mostly due to aids along with the extreme poverty that is predominate through out the area.The stories behind these beautiful babies made them all the more precious that I didn't want to leave any of them there. It is a place of love and the people involved with these little ones are the BEST-but still had a tug on my heart to bring them all home with me! There is not an international adoption policy in South Africa, so knowing that even if I had talked my wonderful family into adding on to our family it couldn't happen with the babies I had met and fallen head over heals for! So when we were not with the older kids teaching them that they were valuable and so loved- we would hang out with the babies and toddlers at IthembaLethu which mean "I have a Destiny". We did get a chance to take a few of the older children to the beach- where only 2 of them were brave enough to go swimming in the Indian Ocean with us-even I got a little squeamish about it after seeing a little boy get stung by a "blue bottle jelly fish" ouch!!! We were there when a large inflatable pool was set up for them- wow did they love that! I was surprised that on the first day we arrived and walked into the fenced in playground they instantly wanted to be picked up and held- they didn't care that we were strangers and looked different than them- they just wanted one on one attention! So that is what we all did!