Vacation = Mohawk

It's Christmas vacation time and all the kids are out of school for a few weeks.  For the boys at the orphanage I live at, this means it's Mohawk time.  This past week I gave at least 15 boys so crazy looking hair cuts - mohawks, the "ronaldo" cut, and a whole lot of stripes.  I'm not necessarily a fan of any of these hair styles but this is what they asked for so I complied. 

Their schools have very strict rules about what type of hair cut they can have but for 2 weeks - they can feel "cool" with these crazy hair styles.  I'll have to "fix" it before they go back to school but if it makes them happy - why not?

You have to make what?

My sweet children are given a TON of homework most days.  Sometimes, it's math, a reading assignment, something out of geography or history but at least once or twice each week my kids are asked to create projects like the ones in the photos below.

For this assignment they were told, "make a diorama of a region. pick a region."  No further instructions were given and of course there is no grading rubric which is unbelievably common.  Talk about frustrating.

However, our 4 dioramas turned out awesome in my opinion.  Here we have the polar region and above is a tropical jungle.  Clearly we took advantage of some Happy Meal toy figures and a few plastic animals.

Sometimes they are asked to bring in volcanoes they've made out of clay or musical instruments, and I think each of my 5th graders has been asked to create a poster board project full of pictures and information at least 10 times this semester alone.  It's more work for me and Sammy than it ends up being for our kids.  But Sammy always says, "my kids are NOT going to be the kids who go to school with something half done or not as good as the other kids."

So there you have it - orphans make school projects just like "normal" kids.

You only turn 12 once

Do you remember what your birthdays were like as a child?  If your upbringing was similar to mine, you had a family birthday dinner, a birthday celebration at school where you brought cupcakes in for the whole class, and then some sort of birthday party with your friends.  My birthdays growing up were always such a huge deal.  My parents would let me plan a huge party with all my friends, games, activities, my favorite foods, and goodie bags for everyone to take home.  I'd always ask for one big present - my parents over the years bought me things like bikes, shoes, clothes, and a surf board.  So naturally, I have very positive feelings when I hear the word, "birthday."

However, the kids our ministry serves - orphans - don't have families who celebrate them on their birthday.  Many of the kids we serve don't actually know how old they are or when their birthday is simply because it's not celebrated.

It's a phenomenon that I've witnessed over my past 4.5 years here in Monterrey and just not understood.  I've forgotten kids' birthdays before and it'll be 2 pm and someone will remind us that it's that kid's birthday so then we all yell, "happy birthday!!!" like all last minute as if we had known the whole time. I've been the caregiver for children who have been in tantrum mode for a solid week and I've not understood why - only later to realize that the child was upset because it was the week of their birthday.

On some one's birthday, family and friends remind them that:
they are special
loved
unique
important
valued
appreciated
cared for

I live with 7 orphan boys these days.  Over the past several months, we've tried our best to make sure that on the day of my kid's birthday to celebrate them - how God made them, to remind them that they matter and are loved, remembered, not forgotten.  So far, we've celebrated 3 of their birthdays.  Each boy is different so each boy gets to pick how he wants to celebrate.  Several have chosen pizza and one chose a specific type of tacos with strawberry Tang.  The strawberry Tang was the most important part to him so we made 2 pitchers instead of just one.

In the planning period of one of the boys' birthdays, it dawned on me that he had never had his own personal birthday party.  He was turning 12 and he'd never had a birthday party.  His birthday falls a few days after Christmas and he's always been overlooked which I guess is easy if you lived in an orphanage with 50 to 100 other kids.  The morning before his afternoon party, I got SO nervous because I wanted to make sure that everything was just right for this little man's big day- his FIRST birthday party.  The sweet child invited all his siblings and the caregivers at the children's home that he actually likes along with the other boys who live in our dorm.  He delivered tacos to all his favorite people just like I used to pass out cupcakes at school when I was his age.

It's days like these when I am in awe of the role and privilege God has given me.  These are some pretty special kids and I get to share moments of the utmost importance with them.  After all, you only turn 12 once.