A weekend full of cute kids! :)

Precious Rebecka!

These past few weeks have been an interesting challenge, there was some issues, and it put a lot of tension on things. But this past weekend I had an amazing opportunity , to go off ship almost the whole weekend. It was just what I needed!

So early Saturday morning, I headed off to a orphanage, about 30-40 minutes from the ship. When we finally arrived, we were run over by the first set of kids. There was one little boy, named Daniel, that was beyond precious. He ran up to Shelly and cried out "Mama!" with a large smile. It brought out the joy in his eyes.

Many of the kids would just run up to you, and put their arms up to be held. I got to hold one boy, he just snuggled right in, and wouldn't let me put him down. We then got out our bubbles, and toys. The kids LOVED the bubbles, they would chase after them, and pop them! Once the bubbles were gone, some of us sat on a mat, and sang songs to the kids, some even started dancing for us!

We then went inside the building to their classroom, to do some coloring and crafts. They all enjoyed it alot!
The kids would keep showing me their drawings, and one time i said it was beautiful and one of the workers just started laughing. These precious kids, have so much talent! There was one boy that the owner pointed out to me, that he's never been to school, so the craft that i thought was easy, he had no idea what to do, but he could speak french very well, and he was great with the little kids! It hurt just to think that he couldn't attend school, but it was a blessing to hear that he's starting school in 3 weeks! When we entered this room, I was holding another youngster, who ended up falling asleep in my arms, but I couldn't let him go, it just felt so right!

When we went back outside, and since its raining season in Africa, it was raining, ha ha. To the kids this seemed pretty normal, but to us, we didn't want to melt! We hid under a shelter for awhile, still playing with the crafts and boats. It was then time to go, this time i had little Daniel on my lap, and he wouldn't get up. ApparentlyIi wasn't going to leave. One of the workers told him to get up, and i stood up, and ended up with his arms around me. I cant wait to go back and see them all agian real soon!

Once we left, we drove back to the ship, picked up our lunch, and then set of again, this time to a baby rescue center! It  was about 30 minutes away from the ship. The center was in an apartment building, with the radio station on a floor, the lady that runs it has her offices on another floor, and then the baby floor!
Right now they have about 12 babies, and all of them were either found abandoned, or not wanted. When we first walked into the room, all the precious babies came running, it was beyond cute! The lady that runs it, is from Grand Prairie, Alberta! She told us that currently 3 of the babies will be adopted, one little girl named Rebecka, is going to a Canadian family, and the twins, named Jacob and David, are going to a family in Ohio! The story behind how the twins got to the center was literally heart breaking, they were left in the middle of the market, abandoned, in hopes that  someone would do something. I kept asking myself the question, why would anyone abandon such a precious baby? And as the afternoon kept going, and i held my new little friend named Sage, nick name Curious George, and kept making him laugh, i never was able to answer that question. We played and cuddled with these cute babies for over 2 hours, and when it was time to leave, we kept pushing it off. We did not want to leave these cuties!

Curious George :)

All of the little ones!

This weekend really was a good experience, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I also got to go to an African Church, my first in Guinea! It was about 4 hours long, with lots of music and a baby dedication! They even fed us afterwards! It showed love can spread no matter where you are in this crazy world!