We had the very great pleasure of running a special "Christmas Eve Errand" this year. Living in South Africa, we've come to know and work with Ethembeni Children's Orphanage. The older three of our children and I have visited there several times, and for Christmas this year we enjoyed organizing a large family project for the children in this place; new shoes for every child. Our family in Salt Lake (and even some of their fmaily; a ripple effect) donated means and time to purchase new shoes for each of the 31 toddlers who live in Ethembeni. We went out on a warm summer's afternoon and purchased some of the shoes; nephews and nieces (along with their parents and aunts and uncles) made a special trip out in the Utah Winter snows to purchase the rest. Additional funds were available, which were used to buy diapers and forthcoming formula for the tiny infants who also live and are cared for in this facility.
The Managers of the orphanage had hoped for each child to open their new shoes on Christmas day, so we dropped into the orphanage Christmas Eve to make our delivery. What a great way to begin our Christmas celebrations; hugging and holding small little people who need to feel the love of Him whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.
3 comments:
Thank you for sharing these pictures so quickly! looking forward to lots more visual visits with these little people.
wow...what a wonderful project Katie! and you're just the kind of person who could pull that off so splendidly! what an amazing thing for each of those tiny children to have in their lives right now...to know they're cared for and loved. thanks for doing that for these little ones. ♥
It was good to be with you as the shoes were given and to be able to see the toddlers, hold the infants and babies. Beautiful children. I was impressed with the cleanliness of the facitlity and the good care given there. May I add that I thought it was great that the children were given the shoes on Christmas Eve day because so many of the toddlers were going out to visit in homes for Christmas day and they could wear the new shoes.
Hope you have more photos you can share with me. Love, Mom/Grandma Noodle
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