Cornerstone Children's Home

I have recently realized that I haven't really explained where I am living this summer. How inconsiderate of me. I apologize. That being said let me tell you a little bit about CCH. It is a children's home for those who are orphaned, whose parents are mentally ill, or do not have the ability to take care of them. There are, I believe, 57 children here ages 3 - 20. There are some permanent staff members such as Ross Kelly, who is the American father here, Pastor Robert, Pastor Juma, Akira, and Dominic who are all also fathers and help out with the running of CCH. Then there are the three temporary mothers (myself, Emily, and Adella). There are groups that come and go and some stay for shorts periods of a couple weeks, some maybe a couple of years.
Our compound is fairly large. It consists of about 10 tukuls, latrines, a shower, a church/office building, and a new building that is being constructed that is easily the biggest structure in Nimule. It is going to house all of the children along with having a big function room and study rooms. Cornerstone has come a long way since its beginnings when all of the children slept on the floor in the church. Now they have tukuls where they sleep in bunk beds or on matresses on the floor. There is a head boy or girl for each tukul.
The children here go to either the nursery or primary school within the compound or Nile, one of the local secondary schools.
So far, getting to know them has been one of the biggest pleasures of my life. I can't explain how incredible it is to be a mother to 57 children. The relationships that I have with some of them already are going to be with me for the rest of my life.
As for our tukul, it is very large. It has turquoise walls with green, blue, and red hand prints on it. There are two bunk beds and a single bed. We have a tin roof as opposed to the thatch that many others have. It is actually less desirable for many because they let in less air so the tukul is much warmer than some of the others, but we like it just fine. We have a great veranda outside that the kids love to come and sit or play on. Wednesday evening I was in charge of the activity for the younger kids and I did "colors" or coloring. I gave out packages or crayons and coloring pages and they colored for about an hour right outside. Some of them wrote "I love Julie" or "I love Adella" or "I love Alia," which is Emily's African name because many people can't say the name Emily and Alia means a very short woman (Emily is even shorter than I am). They are already calling us Mama before our names or Mother. It's really rewarding.
I can't wait for this weekend because I am in charge of the activity on Saturday. I will be teaching the kids how to play wiffle ball. It's going to be amazing I can already tell.
It is also Adella's birthday so we will be having dinner with Agnes, the director of GEDA (Girl Child Education and Development Association). Adella and Emily both have birthdays while we are here, but are wary of celebrating because many of the children here do not know their birthdays. Most of them just estimate or assume their ages. So it seems selfish to make a big deal out of a birthday here or really anywhere in the world because there are so many people that have never known or celebrated their birthdays. So we will be celebrating privately with good friends and great food. Food is a whole other topic I could talk about, but I haven't the time.