One of my favorite parts of this experience has been being a “big sister” to 20 of the girls who live at City of Hope. There are almost 50 girls who live here, and they are split into 3 rooms. My room houses 20 girls, including all of the youngest! Mary, Alice, and I go down to the rooms on weekend nights to play, dance, read, and tuck the girls in. Now that the girls have figured out that this is a weekly occurrence, they wait at the door to the children’s home starting around 8, and the minute they see our headlamps bobbing through the darkness, they run screaming to grab our hands and drag us to their rooms.

During the day, the girls will run up and ask, “Laceee, you come to the room tonight? Bring computer bring computer!”

They LOVE to look at pictures. One night I gathered some of my favorite pictures of friends and family into a folder and made a little slideshow, and they played it over and over. They especially loved the pictures of me when I was a baby- couldn’t stop laughing.

During our trip to Nairobi, we bought each girl a KitKat bar, and last Sunday we brought the treats down to the rooms and each played a movie on our computers. I have never seen my girls sit so still. They didn’t move for over an hour, and were so anxious to see the screen that some of them stood, until I convinced them that it was a long movie so they might want to be comfortable. I have also never seen a 7 year old take 45 minutes to eat a KitKat bar! I finally turned the movie off after some of the little ones fell asleep in the middle! They were fighting to stay awake so they wouldn’t miss a second. We went back tonight to finish the movies, and the excitement had not diminished a bit. Despite the pouring rain on the tin roof, they crowded against the computer or were content to just watch the pictures from their bunk beds. As I went around to the crowded bunk beds to tuck each girl in, every one said “thank you lace!”

love these girls

before dinner playtime

playtime in the room

Alice's girls mesmerized by the movie 

Mary watching Tangled with her girls 

I am going to miss each and every one of these girls so much. They are some of the sweetest, goofiest, brightest children I have ever met. I never would have thought that sitting in the dirt while 4 girls braid every piece of my hair into 10 little braids, playing endless games of “double double this this” and “concentration”, or tucking in 20 little ones in a crowded room half the size of mine at home would become some of my favorite summer memories. I am grateful for the small amount of time that I have been able to spend with these girls, and hope that above all else they will remember the signs that now hang in their room:

You are smart.

You are kind.

You are important.