Hi!!
It's Heidi. We've had a very long day, and I'm totally exhausted. Danny fell asleep before I could even say goodnight :) We woke up early and headed out of town around 6am for a very long drive to Lazarus church. We were able to meet the pastor and donate some food items for the poor church that is in the central Highlands. We then continued on our long road trip- we made it to the elderly home, which was really unique. It's a large group of about 80 people, some elderly and some mentally disabled at any age, and they all live there together. They have a lot of building needs, but they also need food and vitamins to stay healthy. We brought rice and some reading glasses and candy. Of course they liked the candy the best- thanks Myrna!
We were able to say hi, shake hands and pray for the leader of the elderly home. After that, we grabbed some much needed lunch and headed to the highlight of my day- the orphanage. Before we got there though, we had to pass through what several of us consider to be the dragonfruit capital of the world. I'm not kidding folks- they have fields and fields and fields of dragonfruit plants. They look crazy, like floppy cactus in the fields and off of them grow those crazy bright pink fruits with little green spikes. They taste delicious! Anyway, if I have a chance, I'll post Ben's short video on dragonfruit another day :)
When we arrived at the orphanage, it was in better condition that I expected. It was clean and organized and the workers were so nice! The babies were unbelievably adorable. 10 children in all- some tiny newborns and some just a few months, all they way up to 2 years old. 2 of them had a serious condition with fluid on the brain, and so their heads were an abnormaly large size. It broke my heart to see them laying in the cribs, unable to pick up their heads to see what was going on. We all took turns cuddling and cooing at the babies- they were being passed around and hugged and prayed for.
We got to pray for the workers and give them love gifts, as well as the fabulous diapers, formula and other special baby items that I got to shop for on monday. Their faces lit up as they saw everything and they started putting the new clothes on the babies right away. They were too cute. We had to drag ourselves away, because I think we would have stayed to rock them to sleep. We finally left and headed to the hotel for a good night's sleep. I'm very tired, but glad I got to blog- tomorrow will be another action-packed day as we distribute the rice in the village of Phan Son. Ben will be updating us tomorrow...until then- I'll end with a random phrase that was on one of the baby outfits that I bought at the store. Here goes: "Bear! Happy Crab." It had a picture of a bear walking a crab. ??
On that note...good night.
