12-16-11
Today has been an interesting day. It started out slowly. After worship at 7 a.m. we usually get the boys breakfast and then get ready to work. I usually spend most of the morning at Missy Harding’s house helping her home school her kids. Friday I make granola also, but I didn’t end up doing granola or home schooling. I haven’t been feeling very good recently. Stomach trouble, lack of energy… just one of those days. After lunch we had our daily, one hour Spanish class. Then we put the boys down for their rest time and I headed outside to get some macheteing done. After about 30 minutes Juan came out and started helping me machete. I don’t recall exactly when we started hearing crying, but Juan and I both heard it and looked over towards the church wondering who was crying. It sounded like a little baby crying… and it sounded like it was coming from inside our church. I thought that was strange, but strange things happen around here all the time so I guess I just assumed it was a mother with a child staying in our church or something. The crying continued and I asked Juan if there was a baby crying in the church… he told me he thought that it was from some ones home back behind the church. Interesting why it sounded so close. Anyways, we continued with our macheteing until we saw Carmen, the cook at Familia Feliz, walking up the road toward the church. I looked up just in time to see her gasp by the step of the church and take off running back down the road. Uh oh. Juan and I ran across the field to the step of the church, and there sitting in a woven basket that reminds me of what baby Moses floated down the river in, was a tiny baby boy. He wasn’t just a tiny baby either, he was a newborn baby. Shocked, I picked up his tiny little self, and tried to comfort his cries. Within a matter of seconds Missy Harding along with several others came running down the road. As soon as Missy saw the baby she said she was taking him to the doctor right away.
Missy is the founder of Familia Feliz, she has been living here for 6 years and has 10 adopted children… she knows how things work around here. Basically when someone leaves a newborn child on your doorstep, making sure the baby is safe and getting guardianship are the first priorities. It sounds like some people try to throw their little babies on other people, and then show up years later trying to claim the baby as rightfully theirs. Missy has been here long enough to not get pulled into that. If she’s going to raise a baby, she’s not going to lose it down the road! Today was another reminder of how fast things change around here. One day the youngest child at Familia Feliz is 3, the next day we have a brand new baby boy! I guess it’s not a typical day that you find a baby crying outside your door. Already all of Familia Feliz is in love with little Benjamin. He is precious!
We had a baby come to us last week as well, but in less dramatic Moses-fashion. One of our little ones just learned to walk at 15 months; he got carried around too much! You should see if you can make him bilingual... :)
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