lily bloom

Lily bloom--or in Afrikaans, Lillie bloem--is the name of the child home center that the Student Y partners with every semester for an outreach I've seen them refer to as "Orfun." The center is a home for children, some of them are orphans while others have been placed there as their parents may not have the time nor resource to support their kids.

On an absolutely beautiful Saturday morning a couple weekends ago we got to take the kids to a museum that mixed natural history with a planetarium. Each of us some twenty volunteers were placed with a child between the ages of eight and twelve. When we arrived at Lillie bloem to pick the kiddos we were partnered up. Well, "partnered," not because we were assigned a particular child, instead the kids each picked us! They would sort of walk through the gate and grab your hand (or jump on you in some cases) and you knew you'd met your match. The girl I partnered up with was twelve years old and was quite the feisty character. There was a boy her age that she teased throughout the day calling him "little eyes!" because his eyes would squint when he'd laugh. She'd then go on to give him a nice punch whenever he was close enough. Sounds like someone has a crush, atta girl. 

The ride to the museum was memorable, we can sat with each of our kiddos and they had us sing some of their favorite songs including Rihanna's "Diamond" and Bruno Mars' "When I Was Your Man," and, of course, a little bit of the Biebs. These little ladies knew just about every word, showing me up every time.

Friends in the comvee before arriving at Lillie bloem.

We began our day sitting outside of the museum with some activities planned: a skit of the Good Samaritan (played by yours truly haha), a quick snack of biscuits, and whipped out some old school praise songs like Father Abraham. If any of the kids were timid at the start of the day, they certainly had been broken in at this point. We then were able to enter into the museum and spend the day with our respective child. We strolled around the museum (making great effort to keep up with my little one) for about an hour then headed to a different section for a show in the planetarium. I probably enjoyed the museum a bit more than I should have, but I think all of us college-aged folk seemed to agree that there not eight planets. It was almost painful to listen to the emcee try to explain dwarf planets--and I digress. Once we finished the show we headed to a park outside where we sat atop some steps and had lunch together.

It was such a joy knowing that though our day was so simple it was one that meant the world to them. Again, it is a bit difficult realizing the lack of permanence in these kids' lives. I saw this most clearly when we first jumped into the van after meeting the children, and watched as my roommate's partner (who was much younger and smaller than many others) hop onto her lap and tell her that Nichelle would be her mom for the day...

I don't have many answers, but after seeing the smiles on these faces at the end of the day, I've decided that these things should not justify a decision to sit back and let these opportunities pass.