Today my mom sent me a picture of Eden from just after we brought her home from the hospital. It was taken almost exactly 3 years ago, just before Thanksgiving in 2009. Recently our church recognized Orphan Sunday and I am so thankful that Eden is no longer an orphan, but I can’t help but think of all of the children that are still waiting for a mother and father at the children’s homes we often visited.

There is one particular place that I think of often. It’s called the Amani Shelter and was originally created as a place for abused women to recover after a stay at the hospital until they could go home. Before long, women would come to the shelter with their children and after several of the women died, the children remained at Amani. Today, the Amani Shelter cares for abused women and children as well as orphaned children and is run by Florence and Happiness, two of the most faithful, caring and committed women you could ever meet.

While Ben and I were in Kenya in 2011, several people pitched in to donate money to the Amani Shelter. We asked Florence and Happiness what the shelter needed and their list included flour, bread, meat, bowls and cups, as well as an umbrella for the guard and rain coats and boots for them because they walk to work and in the rainy season walk in the rain. At the time there were 4 women (one woman whose husband had stabbed her eyes out when he found out she was pregnant), an infant and 11 children living there. The house that is Amani Shelter is 4 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and a barn out back for the chickens (which is also where the occasional men stay when they are residents at the shelter).

I wish I could describe to you the disparity between the needs that the individuals have and the hope and joy that they exhibit. The kids there are far more satisfied than my children ever are and many of them have never had the things that we would consider necessities.

I’ve been feeling convicted about the way we left Kenya behind when we came back to the US. We have become self-focused and slipped quickly back into the pursuit of the “American dream”, rather than continuing to care for and support causes and people that we came to love while there. I’m hoping that as we head into a busy time of year, focused on buying, gift giving and receiving, traveling and frivolous spending, that our family, and maybe yours as well, would take time to remember the people that have nothing.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to share stories of some of the children at the Amani shelter. I’m also going to ask you to consider what you might be able to do to help the kids there. Some ideas are to donate money to the shelter to help them buy basic supplies (this could be a one time donation, or monthly support), give money for Christmas gifts (Javan, an employee at the IU compound, takes the kids shopping each year), or pay to send a child to school (this is a multiple year commitment). If you have an interest in joining us to support the Imani Shelter in some way, please let me know and I’ll help you make it happen.

Grace has entered such a fun stage! She’s been very busy changing and growing over the last month. Grace continues to be very mobile and loves to chase Eden and Andy. She likes to play peek-a-boo with towels and blankets and waves and also said her first word, “hi”! Now she loves to wave and say “hi” any time she sees someone for the first time (like when the kids wake up from their naps or Ben comes home) and she likes to wave when she is being carried out of a room.

Gracie is pulling up on everything and has let go a couple of times for just an instant. She is eating more solid foods and has had tiny bits of hotdog, puffs, yogurt guys, bread, cheese and a few other things. She demands more solid foods now, but still eats a little bit of baby food as well.

Grace had her 9 month check up today and was 28 inches long and weighed 15 lbs, 15 oz. Grace seems to look more and more like Andy, but she’s MUCH smaller. Andy weighed slightly more than Grace does now when he was 3 months!

Grace is 8 months old and she is becoming such a little person! She is very active, crawling everywhere and pulling up on things. She has crawled up to the second step and climbed onto the kitchen stool. She chases Eden and Andy all around the house and has started pulling up by the backdoor to peek outside. Grace can flip herself from a crawling position to a sitting up position without a wobble although she still can’t crawl very far on her hands and knees and resorts to an army crawl after a few minutes.

Grace got her first tooth this past month. It poked through on the 16th and her second tooth came through the next day. She chews on everything and really prefers eating yogurt bites to baby food.

Poor Grace has had nonstop colds since the beginning of September and while she has been pretty pleasant, she hasn’t been sleeping or eating well. Grace and I get a lot of time together from 3-6am because her cough keeps her up, but she takes a great morning nap!

Whew! We’re behind, but tonight is the first night that we’ve had internet at the new house, so I’m playing catch-up.

Andy is now 2 1/2! He’s as busy as ever but is much more articulate and opinionated! It’s been so fun to listen to Andy’s speech develop over the last several months. He loves to talk and is quite good at expressing himself now. He is still plays pretty rough, even when he’s trying to be gentle and he’s always on the move. He could spend hours driving his cars, trucks and trains around and is very happy with his new rug that has streets and buildings on it in the basement. He recently decided he likes to read books as well and is constantly pulling books off of the shelf to read.

The hardest part of Andy’s life is that Eden is going to school and he isn’t. Every day that we drop Eden off is a struggle. He throws himself on the floor of the church and cries when we’re trying to leave because he wants to stay. I look like superwoman dragging Andy out under one arm and Grace in her car seat on the other.

Grace is getting more and more mobile. She army crawls everywhere and is fast! She is getting better at crawling on her hands and knees, but her arms can’t support her for very long. She started chatting a few weeks ago, although the most common sound from her is screaming. That’s pretty much the only way she can be heard above her siblings.

Last week, Eden and I were sitting on her bed talking and Grace was sitting on the floor. Suddenly, Grace’s cute little face popped up over the edge of the bed! She had crawled over to the bed and pulled herself into a standing position.

The kids are keeping us busy but it’s fun (most of the time!).

You may have noticed the new ‘auction’ tab on our blog. This morning, we opened an auction to help raise money for Eden’s adoption. If you’re interested, we would love for you to participate! You can click here to register. After you register with your email address and create a password, you are then able to bid on items. The auction will end on August 3 at 8pm. The highest bidder for each item is the winner!

We will have a reception on August 25 where you will be able to pick up your items. Otherwise we will be happy to make arrangements to ship it to you for $5.

The items in the auction are all from Kenya and were purchased in Eldoret, where we first met Eden. If you have any questions, please leave a comment on this post and we will be happy to help!