Slumber Party

It literally has been years since I have been a part of a slumber party, let alone a slumber party weekend. This weekend our team has invited Ann, a sweet friend from church, over to hang out…along with 3 energy filled young girls. Justine is a tall 11 year old that lives with her mother Mary not far from our house. Mary is a good friend with Lois and we met this sweet family early in our arrival to Kenya. Mary makes beautiful beaded jewelry along with delicious peanut butter to support her family. I could tell you a lot about Mary and her life, but for now I want to focus on Justine and the other girls. The other day, Heather, Lois, and I went to visit Mary and asked if Justine would be willing to come for a sleep over at our house. Justine was so excited, as was her brother who wished he could come too. J There is also a young girl who is staying with the pastor and his wife from New City Fellowship that is coming over to our house for the sleep over. Anishima is a 13 year old Asian girl who is only able to come to the sleep over on Saturday night. Last, but not least, is Christine. Christine is a precious 12 year old who Lois and Robert Carr have somewhat taken in. Lois found Christine and her brother James while out on one of the ministry sites many years ago. Although they do not live with Lois and Robert, Christine and James would consider the Carr’s their family.

On Friday night Ann, Justine, Christine, and the rest of us girls all curled up in the living room to watch a movie. Here movies are very much a luxury so the girls were very excited about watching one. I don’t know if I have mentioned this, but the house we are staying in literally has hundreds of movies in it. I am not exaggerating. They have two cabinets full of movies. One cabinet has movies more for adult audiences while the other cabinet plus binders and binders full of movies are hundreds of kid’s movies. Again, I am not exaggerating when I say hundreds. Before our new friends came, myself and 2 other girls from the team went into what we call the “movie room” to pick out pre approved movies for our girls to choose from. O the delighted laughter and quick chatting in Swahili as they looked through their pile of movies. The girls chose to watch The Pacifier and during the movie Justine said, “Let’s jump in and go help them”. It was one of those priceless moments. She was so into the movie, especially since it was a very suspenseful part to her and me for that matter…let’s face it we all know I get scared very easily…and she truly wished she could jump in to help the characters out…I wish I had that on video.

Saturday morning dawned bright and early. I awoke to lots of giggles from girls who were trying to laugh quietly but hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it. I actually enjoyed waking up to that noise. After breakfast, another movie, a little bit of water coloring, and then we headed out to the trampoline…Yes, I said trampoline! I have not jumped on a trampoline in years. I also have not laughed so hard in years! Emily, Jenny, and I bounced and jumped with Justine and Christine until I thought my legs would fall off. Christine had never jumped on a trampoline before so it was fun to see her with her “sea legs”. After our laughter filled trampoline experience the girls wanted to watch another movie while in their bed. So we popped in Winn Dixie and I lay in there with them during the end of the movie. Since it is so cold here our house is very very cold. I had bundled the girls up with blankets and was now lying next to Christine without any covers. Christine was in the middle and Justine had her arm thrown over Christine so she could hold my hand and we cuddled and watched the end of the movie. I wish I could have paused that moment and grabbed my camera so precious were they. While we were all snuggled up I made the comment that they sure did feel warm and toasty. Justine sat up and looked at me and said, “Kate, Christine is burning up with a high fever.” I pulled down the covers and she was burning up. I forgot to mention that Christine is HIV positive and I can’t remember exactly, but some level was either high or low so for her to feel so hot to my touch scared me. I quickly jumped off the bed, called Lois, found my thermometer, grabbed Emily, the nurse, and as soon as I popped the thermometer in Christine’s mouth the temperature began to skyrocket. The thermometer wasn’t even all the way under her tongue and her temp read 104.6. Now I’m no nurse, but that is high…even for me that is high. Lois said she would be over in a few minutes to take Christine to the doctor.

While Christine and Lois headed to the doctor the rest of us girls made more crafts, painted toenails, and did a little bit more jumping on the trampoline. That afternoon Lois brought Christine back from the doctor. She has pneumonia so we had to give her lots of medications over the weekend. My favorite part of the day was when I returned from a meeting with Lois and Robert to discover Emily and the 3 girls on the trampoline again. The girls didn’t so much enjoy jumping around, but being bounced…I could hear your thoughts…you let a you girl with pneumonia jump on the trampoline…no, she just really sat on the edge with a huge smile on her face. Alfred was also around so we asked him if he ever jumped. He said yes, so we asked him to join us. Apparently Anishima had already asked Alfred to jump earlier that day and she testified that he could jump really high. He climbed on up and started to jump. I joined in and began to fly. Let me just say, I grew up jumping on a neighbor’s trampoline and I have never in my life gone this high. We would always try and launch people to see how high they could go. Well, let’s just say Alfred must have had practice as a child launching people. While jumping and launching on the trampoline with Alfred and Emily I have screamed like a school girl and belly laughed more than I have in years. It really was one of the best times…and I think we have finally won Alfred over. J As you can tell our weekend with the girls holds precious memories for both them and us.