We had one of the best weeks at Hearts that Hope… Keep reading to find out why!
What an adventure COVID 19 has been. I didn’t actually think it would last as long as it has. This past month hasn’t been easy for all our children. Not getting much outside interaction besides school has left a lot of them frustrated. Even at school, they aren’t always able to express themselves because of all the rules schools have to follow due to the pandemic.
I know kids adjust well but it also does affect them in ways we as adults find it difficult to understand. I’m still going to counseling in my 40’s and I can’t even remember the effect that big life changes had on me growing up. As a result, it seems our pre-teens have been acting out a lot around the home. We have had to be strict and I found myself doing a lot of grounding boys to their houses or bedrooms.
After some time thinking Lyndall and I thought maybe they need a break from the everyday life of lockdown. We asked on social media if anyone had a house we could get away to for our first ever HTH holiday (vacation for all you Americans). We were offered to house sit for a supporter of ours for a week and we were over the moon.
For all but 2 of our children and 1 of our house mom’s, this is their 1st ever family holiday. It was great to see the excitement on their faces as we packed up the vehicles to hit the road. It brought back so many memories of my childhood and the excitement I had as we set out on our summer vacations as a family. It was such an honor to get to bless our HTH kids and I was so humbled by it.
I wish you all could hear the laughter of the children as they jumped in the pool, or see the excitement on their faces as we headed out in the shore break of the Indian Ocean to “catch a wave” on their bodyboards. To see the delight in the older girls as they sit on the couch in a big airconditioned house reading a Harry Potter book while its 40C/106F outside and the small children are running around them playing hide and seek. Then at the end of the night to send them out to the back yard to sleep in tents for the night and hearing the whispers, “I’ve never camped before.”
I’m just so honored to have the “job” I have of raising 15 amazing children and the joy they bring to Lyndall and myself.
Thank you so much to the sponsors that let us house sit for them for this week. I so wish you could hear the joy you brought to 15 kids, 3 house moms, and Lyndall and myself.
I often write this at the end of my letters but it could never be truer than today as I sit and type looking out over the pool with the Indian Ocean just over the trees.
BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING