Home of Hope

Well, we survived our first week of work.

For the next 5 weeks we will be working at Home of Hope, a place for children to go who have been abandoned, violently abused, raped, neglected, infected with HIV and AIDS, or born bearing the effects of drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy.

The children in this home are between the ages of 1 and 10 and 90% of them suffer from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, among other things. Some days we will be working with the 1-5 year olds and others we will work with the 6-10 year olds. All of the children are extremely emotionally and developmentally delayed. None below the age of 4 can talk, and they are all significantly small for their ages. There is a teacher who comes to the home during the week to work with the smaller kids, and we will work with her to try to help them develop their speech and motor skills. It is certainly a challenge to work with these children as many of them don’t seem to be receptive of intervention, but we know that they are in need of a lot of help. Unfortunately, I think they are in need of greater help than we are able to provide – but hopefully we’ll be able to make a difference in their lives somehow. They will certainly make a difference in ours.

The first few days were a bit wild and we certainly got taken for a ride as all of the children tried to test their luck with us. We all pretended not to smell anything at the scent of the first dirty diaper since it’s been years since any of us have changed one. Amy and I double-teamed the first one, and after that it was smooth sailing

We usually get done with work around 2pm and have lots of free time in the evening. Unfortunately, it’s winter and it gets dark at around 5:30pm. So, we’ve been going on runs, playing cards, and doing lots of reading. We’ve been upgraded to another room where all of us have bottom bunks. We really feel like we’re living large now! We have our weekends free from work and are looking forward to getting out and exploring more this weekend – looks like we’re all set to repel off Table Mountain in the morning! More to come soon.

Getting ready to start our second day of work

Amy singing

Laura doing Play-Do with the kids

Me helping the kids make masks

This child is precious

More Play-Do

Our new room!

Getting ready to go for a run

Amy and I dancing in the street

Bundled up at the house at night playing cards