At the end of July, Ben went with several others from our church on a mission trip to Guatemala. This was his second time going down there (he went before in 2009). On his last trip, he said one of the highlights for him was visiting the children at the state orphanage. He also helped with construction at the missionaries' compound (which has homes and a school), put on a drama for school kids in town, and handed out supplies at a mountain village. Well, of all those things, I knew the easiest for Lila to understand would be the orphanage -- that there are kids our there who don't have parents and probably don't have any toys of their own. I wanted her to have a part in Ben's trip. So we went to a store and bought some little toys, stickers, etc. that we could send along with Ben to pass out at the orphanage.
The loot.
In our little bag, we had a stuffed friend, toy, eraser and some stickers.
This was a PERFECT activity for my girl. Her eyes lit up when I showed her what we were going to do. I set out all of the items and showed her what went in each bag.
She took it from there!
While we were working, we were able to talk a little bit about what it means to be an orphan.
"Mom, if you died, would Wyatt and I go to an orphanage?"
And how nice it is to have toys you can keep in your own room.
Things we take for granted.
She had those bags filled in no time! We did 48 bags (a lot of the items were sold in sets of 12), plus I knew Ben didn't have a ton of room in his bag since they were taking other things down as well.
Is this fun Lila?
YEAH!
Originally, I had in mind that I would put this picture of Lila with the finished gift bags next to a picture of all the orphanage kids playing with their toys. Maybe Ben would even get a picture of them with the little parachute men floating in the air (that was one of the toys). Well, as it turns out, the mission team didn't even get to go to the state orphanage this time. The state workers were on strike! Bummer.
Instead they took our little toy bags along when they went to the mountain village.
Along with LOTS of other toys that were donated.
Ben did get a picture of a little girl playing with one of the toys we sent. (A whistle in the shape of lips.)
Ben had a great time down there again. (These are some of the school children who saw the drama they did.) He has said he wants to go again and wants me to go with him. I'm not sure how good I'd be at pouring cement. Maybe they need a team photographer??
Also, I found out that the children in the state orphanage aren't allowed to keep toys, so I guess God knew it was better that those little bags head up the mountain!
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