Easter at the Toddler House

He is alive, and His Spirit lives within us! There was much much joy this weekend as we celebrated Christ’s victory over death and the sacrifice He made for each one of us. Toddler House had only a few moments over the whole weekend that a RaRa wasn’t within hearing distance. On the evening of Good Friday one containing many of our neighbours came and performed on the roof of our neighbours heads high enough above our wall that all the kids could see them. I was saddened to see so many peoeple we know involved and tried to imagine what it would be like to live my life in fear of irrational evils and impending doom, instead of in the freedom and joy that I have knowing my Lord and Savoir is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and has conquered even death that I might live! The groups were not so close to our house nor did they perform as often last year and I was curious how this year’s immediate presence would effect our kids, whom openly “boooed” them. But instead of making them fearful and causing them to hide out inside the house they just stared at them... given the opportunity a short time later to sing praises to Jesus they sang as I have never heard before!! Their voices strong and clear one came up with the idea to sing louder than the RaRa’s everyone else agreed it was the best plan. They sang on and on and I don’t know that they would have stopped had bedtime not been rapidly approaching.

Odeleine, one of our 9 year old girls, wrote this about Easter in her journal:

Jesus at Easter Time
The man said show me Jesus and I will give you money. They want Jesus to die. On Friday they put Jesus on the cross with two other people. The boy ran with the nails. After three days Jesus rose again. We talk about Jesus at church. Jesus rose again. Mary cried for Jesus. Jesus died for everybody. Ermithe (her 7 year old friend) cried for Jesus. She did not want Jesus to die. The RaRa was happy because Jesus died. Jesus prayed before he went to the sky. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.” Jesus like walking with little kids.

March Update

The next batch of gifts from our family had arrived just before our update. And this is what one of the volunteers wrote:

Neissa had her page of stickers out in the yard one morning and was very excitedly showing them to me. She was asking the name of the little man, and kept repeating “Leprechaun” after I would tell her. I asked her if there was also a letter (let), but she misunderstood my imperfect Creole and thought I was saying they were ugly (led). Neissa kept insisting that, no, it was “bel”! I thought it was sweet and gave up asking my question and agreed that, yes, her gifts were very nice.

Chalinda continues to mother those younger than her and play with her peers. She can definitely be competitive in her games, however. The other day several of the oldest kids started jumping off the short platform, trying to see who could jump the longest. Pretty soon we were using a piece of chalk to mark how far each child was able to jump. Chalinda was disappointed when she did not have the farthest mark (she was second only to one of the girls older than her), and kept trying to rub the mark off so it could not be seen anymore.

Sonise did celebrate her birthday this month. Sonise attended our March birthday party, although she was rather embarrassed about it. I think she thought it was a party for the little kids, and she did stay apart somewhat. However, Sonise did have fun playing balloon games with Peterson and one of the volunteers. They were playing keep-away, and Sonise was really getting into that.