Happy Bangla Birthday!

“Kelsey, we’re celebrating your birthday right now.” It is the evening before my birthday and Lisa drags me to the front of “chapel”(the evening worship with the kids) in a headlock. I KNEW she’d been acting suspicious the past few days! But what exactly had she done? My mind races and the excitement builds as she begins talking to the kids. I am so lucky to share my birthday here with quite possibly the cutest little boy EVER! Jacob will just melt you with his smile, and he was called to the front with me. They begin singing “Happy Birthday” to us and Jacob is just beaming beside me with a huge smile on his cute little face. Then Lisa passes out a candy and banana cookies she had made to ALL the kids and caregivers-she must have made at least 140 cookies in her lunch break that day! It is QUITE a tasty treat for them. Then she again disappears, but the kids want to hear a special story for the celebration. I tell them how birthdays are celebrated in other countries. They didn’t like the idea of birthday spankings, but they loved the Ecuadorian tradition of smashing birthday girl’s face into the birthday cake! Something about being able to smear frosting all over everyone was appealing to them J After the story I was called up to the balcony(still in sight of the kids) for another surprise! A few of the staff(mainly Banni and Lisa I believe) had put up a banner and very carefully decorated a table with a cake and candle on it. Following more songs and laughter it was time to cut the cake. The 1^st slice I placed on the napkin Lisa was holding so close to my face was just too tempting for her—I soon had cake all over my face and everyone trying to dodge me as I made sure they got to experience some cake on the face as well! Lisa hadn’t heard me telling the story of that tradition to the kids just minutes earlier, but I later found out the kids were watching as Lisa so perfectly brought the story to life for them! When I felt I had shared enough frosting love they passed out the slices of delicious Funfetti cake with chocolate frosting MMMMMMMM! It was soooooooo good. They even had Bengali ice cream to go with it! The mango was my favorite J Festivities continued with much laughter, good times, and even a game of badminton. I was thoroughly enjoying myself and it wasn’t even my birthday yet!

Birthday morning I awoke to a table of packages-another one of Lisa’s wonderful surprises! Lisa and Banni got me Doreos and Nucilla—Bengali version of Oreos and Nutella. Of course we put them together and tried them right away--SOOOO TASTY! Needless to say, with such a scrumptious chocolatey start to the day it was truly one of the best days I’ve had here yet! It was absolutely packed with so many awesome experiences like my mom getting to meet my 7 yr. old mom on skype, a bunch of cute little balls of energy singing at my door, and even helping a few people experience their 1^st ride on a bike...but this blog is already way too ridiculously long to tell everything! The “little gifts”(but really huge gifts of love) from staff and kids alike throughout the day were such inspiring reminders of how much we have to give, even when we have nothing—love is the greatest gift of all!

Before coming here I’d dreamed of being able to give that gift of love to a child that didn’t have much hope, even of survival. I dreamed of rescuing a child and bringing it to the orphanage where it could be well cared for and grow up knowing that God and all the wonderful people working here loved them. We’d heard of a baby boy we may get to rescue….could my dream come true already?! On my birthday, Mrs. Waid took us to the boy’s village to bring him back to the orphanage, but that’s another story for another blog. It just made my birthday that much more unforgettable. A perfectly splendid day ended in star gazing with my “adopted” twin sisters J