Party time!

I love giving these kids sugar. They go berserk in the funniest ways. Like, this one kid was standing in front of the refrigerator doing dance after dance after dance as he read the weekly schedule. Then he just screamed and started flailing. Then he stopped and gave me a hug as I just stared at him and then ran away. What? Or this other kid who just came up to me and said, "I need to run I need to run I need to run! Time me!" and then ran around the house. I mean really.

The occasion for all of this sugar consumption was the joint celebration of two different birthdays. We busted out cakes, ice cream and coke...before dinner. Finally a country that gets the order right! Naturally because I was serving the ice cream I had a little bit of an advantage when it came to how much strawberry cheesecake ice cream I was able to consume. Hey, think of it as me vicariously destroying my teeth so they won't have to get dentures (it's for the children!!). I also vicariously drank a lot of soda. Treasures in heaven, you know. It was really cool to see the kids just having fun and enjoying something special. It was also really sad when I had to remind some of them that I wouldn't be here for their birthdays when they asked me. Rats. Just running around being crazy was a blast! One of the birthday boys is pretty small and so has a tendency to be vulnerable to the bigger kids. So my birthday present was to tackle and sit on the biggest kid in the house and let the birthday boy do whatever he wanted, which consisted of tickling, a wedgie and slowly moving his foot toward the other kid's face. Hey, he's one of the more angelic kids in the whole orphanage so he's earned it. He even does homework on the weekends. Dude has issues.

In an unrelated event that was still pretty funny, I went with my house to a presentation some church from America was putting on. One of their skits was that really cool Lifehouse song where, you know, it starts with the girl following Jesus and then all these people representing different sins come and drag her away until she's suicidal and then Jesus throws Himself between her and the sins? If you haven;t seen it, go watch it, it's great. Anyway, they did that and halfway through I realized the kid on my lap was singing along perfectly. In english. "Ok, how many times have you seen this skit?" "I dunno, lots. The kids in Neuvo Pacto do it all the time." I laughed. You gotta feel sort of bad for the church team. Also funny is how difficult it can be sometimes to get the kids to try and speak to you in spanish, but the instant there's a church handing out toys they have no problem sounding like used car salesmen. "Friend, friend, come here! Friend, I am serious, amiga, serious, come here!" "Don't you already have a toy?" "No, this not mine. Uhh, it is his. I have now, but it is his. Friend. Friend. Amiga. Please no leave!" But hey, he got a toy car and a Rubik's Cube out of it so who am I to judge.

Be praying for the girls in the city. Apparently they both got sick. Morgan is also gluten intolerant and hasn't been able to eat as often as would be healthy. Cressia and Emily are currently in the city with them, bringing them medications or something.

Also, I don't think any of the girls even realized it was Manday Monday today. Just because I think my tear ducts have fused doesn't mean I don't cry on the inside.

-Matt