28 months 1 day

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Day 853. Yesterday I was so very tired I headed to bed just after 10:30 pm. Tammy soon joined us, and then Emmy, but I wasn't woken up too often tonight. We were all still sleeping nicely, when the doorbell started ringing off the hook at 7 am. Emmy was lying between my legs at that point, and he had already moved around, so he was up with me and followed me to the door. It was Paul. Today we're doing the Kids Christmas Party, and he came to get the numbers for the kids and the candy. However, I had completely  forgotten to make the numbers! I immediately got the computer out and started printing what I had, giving that to him, and then typing in more numbers, all the way to 1024. Every few minutes Paul returned to pick up a few hundred more numbers.

They were letting the kids waiting on the outside in one by one, giving each one a number and candy. Once they were all inside, Paul did three games with them until he had one winner. It was a girl today. Then he led them in singing Bambara praise songs, followed by preaching the gospel and a Q&A time to see whether they had listened. Each kid with a correct answer got some candy.

Then it was time for the distribution.  It was only 9:30. One by one the kids came into our dining hall, where a 1000 shoes were laid out as well as a 1000 drinks. Each kid received a pair of shoes and a drink and then left the base. They were told they could return later for a meal.

As soon as I had finished getting all the numbers ready, it was high time to make the kids' breakfast. Randy had already given them two bananas while waiting. It was just after 8 am, when we sat down for breakfast. Emmy didn't want to eat anything, but the girl ate my oatmeal with milk and some of the omelet while sitting on my lap. They were both soon at the door, looking at the chickens outside, as well as the sheep passing by.

After cleaning up I started doing office work. It wasn't long before Randy decided to take the kids over to where all the action was going on for a few minutes. However, it was not a good time as they were just putting all the shoes out, and the 1000 kids that had come were waiting in the courtyard to go in and pick them up.

I started making chicken soup just after 10 am, since we still had a lot of leftover chicken from New Year's Eve. It took me an hour to get all the chicken off the bones and into the pot. Then I still had some time until noon, with the soup cooking away on the stove. I did some work on the computer, with the kids coming and going, and I also had Sammy for a while.

A noon we sat down to eat the chicken soup. It was very hot, and so I put some ice into it. Tammy was impatient and started crying, when she spilled some of the hot soup on her hand. I put some ice on it and put her back into the chair. With more ice the soup was now rather cold.  In any case, neither Emmy nor Tammy ate very much of it. Sammy also soon stopped eating and started crying. I asked him whether he wanted to go to bed, and while has never said the word "yes" yet, he stopped crying at the question, and so I figured he wanted to go sleep. I cleaned him up, dressed him, and put him to bed, before it was even 12:30.

The other two had some yoghurt, with Tammy eating what Emmy didn't want any more. Then I took them both to the bathtub to clean them up. Tammy didn't want to go in the bathtub and was screaming and fighting me the whole time I was cleaning her up. Both of them seemed pretty tired. We put them to bed, and Emmy fell asleep right away, at 12:50. Not so Tammy, even though she was in sleeping position. It took her until after 1:30 to fall asleep, and only once I lay down next to her. At least it was fast then, and I could soon get up and get back to work.

A few kids from the outside had run around by our house, when they had no business being in this part of our center, and so I shouted outside for them to get back to the front. When I did, Sammy woke up. Randy could not get him to fall asleep, and so Randy took him to the living room with him. He'd had just over 1 hour of sleep. When I went to the living room a while later, I found Randy asleep, and Sammy happily playing by himself on the floor.

A while later someone was at the door for me, and so I left the sleeping kids. It wasn't long, when they were both up and joining us there. Paul came over somewhere around 3 pm and gave me his report about the Kids Party. He was the only one who hadn't even eaten yet, and so I gave him some of the leftover chicken from New Year's Eve. Last Easter 1500 children came. Today 2400 children came. They all heard the gospel, but only 1400 received shoes and a 1000 a drink.

Back at our house, the kids were playing, and as always Tammy and Emmy came to sit on my lap, and especially Tammy wanted to see videos of themselves, when they were babies. Sammy also joined me a few times, as he was cranky in the living room. Emmy was also pretty cranky.

At 5:30 I started making dinner, but I was out of eggs, so I sent Amadou to buy some nearby. I was cutting up fruit, when Tammy suddenly vomited. It was the first of six times in the course of the next few hours. Yesterday Emmy had vomited three times in the morning, and then he was fine, though he only started eating normally again the next day. We sat down for dinner later than usual, after 6 pm. Tammy wanted to sit in my lap and just had a few pieces of watermelon that she also vomited back out.

Everyone went into the bathtub and had fun. Then we got them out and ready for bed. It was also after 7 pm, when they were all in bed. Sammy fell asleep fast, Tammy immediately lay down to sleep, but did more vomiting and Emmy who was really tired actually fell asleep before her.  Tammy finally fell asleep around 7:45 pm, after I had lain down beside her.

I got myself something to eat and went back to work. Tammy woke up again and vomited a little. Next time she woke up she wanted milk. Against my better judgment I let her have it. A few minutes later she vomited it all out - first on our bed, and then, after I picked her up, on me and on the floor. Then it was all back out. I cleaned her up, gave her fresh clothes, and we changed our bed sheets. Emmy woke up in the process. We put him into his own bed, but after Tammy was back in our bed, on the fresh sheets, he also returned to our bed.

At 8:30 pm tonight Randy called me that there was an ex-resident kid at the door wanting to see me. It was "little Hama". I asked what he was doing at our door in the middle of the night. He claimed that he'd been at the Christmas Party today. I asked him whether he was sleeping on our base, and he said no. He had papers in his hand and was ready to tell me some sob story of why he need a lot of money right now. I've seen it before. I told him to come back during the day, when Paul was here, and talk to him. He walked away in the direction of our gate, but then I saw him run under the trees to our wall that he had obviously climbed over to get on our base. I called Amadou, our guard and Paul. The guard confirmed that he had not come through the gate. Because of our construction site it's right now too easy to climb over the wall.

I'm coming back right now, after Tammy vomitted two more times, and I changed the sheets two more times. She'd only just had water and it all came back up. Please pray this was the last time, and that she can have a good night's rest now.