Advertisement
Published: December 25th 2012
First off, Merry Christmas to everyone!
I don't have much time as I leave to start my little holiday trip in less than an hour. The last few days have been quite fun for us here at Open Arms.
Father Christmas was a little late coming in last night but thankfully he made it and as the kids ran into Emmanuel Hall for chocolate chip pancakes this morning, all the presents and stockings were there. In addition to the presents provided by Father Christmas, the East London Rotary Club also presented each child with a gift. We gave the Rotary Club a little insight into each child so everyone was really happy with their gifts! Instead of writing all of the children's reactions, I decided to include a bunch of pictures of today's events. We all ate breakfast together at 8:30 am while Christmas movies played on the projectors. Then, I read a little Christmas story to the children before they all go to open their presents. The kids went wild! They were very happy to receive all of their little toys and sweeties. I think I had even more fun than the kids just watching them joyfully open
their presents.
On Christmas Eve, we spent the night having a Christmas braai and dinner over at Anina's and Peety's who are some very lovely people from town. Peety was the Police Commisioner of Komga for many years and is a very nice man especially having experienced many difficult things I am sure. While at dinner, we decided that since I can eat more than anyone here has ever seen, I must try the local "food challenge" which is eating a kilogram burger (2.2 lbs) at a local game reserve. So in preparation, last night I gave it a go eating as much food as I could: bacon wrapped chicken with cherries, boerewors, chicken leg kabobs for an appetiser then wart hog, garlic potatoes, wheat salade, rotisserie chicken as well as desert for supper. I was quite full but convinced Peety that I can do this challenge but we shall see. It was up there with the most I've ever eaten. If I win the food challenge, I receive about 24 cases of free beer haha. Crazy right but I just want to do it for the glory of finishing the burger.
Here is a link to what
it looks like:
http://www.google.co.za/search?hl=en&q=inkwenkwezi+burger&bpcl=40096503&biw=1366&bih=667&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=K6XZUKvSNcnQhAe5k4CYBQ
It was a lovely Christmas eve as even though I missed home, Peety and Anina said that we three volunteers are like their adoped children here since they now have one of their sons working in America.
On Dec. 23, we had a campfire for the kids which involved me reading a chapter of Harry Potter to 20 youngsters, then storytelling and dancing to music. Holiday break here is so much fun spending quality time with the kids and I am sad to leave but also ready to recharge my batteries (and see ND win in Miami)! I have been able to finish another project before I leave which was to build a cover over our water resevoir. Using many beams of wood I build almost what looks like a wood canopy covered now by two tarps to prevent algae growth. Water is very expensive here so I am glad to know that now with the resevoir built, we have access to over 50,000 litres of rain water we store in tanks. Impressively, one inch of rain water can fill up one 10,000 litre tank. So hopefully we will use more rainwater now
at Open Arms which I bet is better for the kids health than municipality water and is much cheaper.
Well, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and hopefully I will see many of you in Miami on Jan 2nd!! For those that I will not see, I hope you enjoyed your holidays hopefully with your families and that everything is going great!
Kevin
P.S. If you are in the Christmas spirit and want to donate to Open Arms Home to help us support these children please send a check to the following address:
Open Arms Home
P.O. Box 2198Litchfield Park, AZ 85340
Or use our website: www.openarmshome.com
Advertisement
Tot: 0.206s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.1121s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Dan Rahill
non-member comment
Thank you Kevin
Kevin, thank you for including us in a Christmas that you will remember the rest of your life. You are not only living the dream you are making it come true for all the lives you have touched. God Bless.