First week is...

A lot better than the first day!

I want to thank everyone who has thought of us and prayed in the last week as we have adjusted to this ministry. It has been a tiring but good week. On Tuesday we moved to RB's Multi-Service for nights so that we could get a better nights rest and so that we could better prepare for the next day. So for the next 2 weeks, that is where we will be staying. It is a huge blessing to have found a place like that! We are even being guarded by a man with a shotgun, no safer feeling than that.

As for the orphanage, we are adjusting to the kids and they are adjusting to us! It has been really good and tough all at the same time. We didn't think discipline would be our job there, but it seems like the trend here has pointed to us parenting and thus disciplining the children as well. It seems like they have never really had discipline and manners. So a good chunk of the week was spent teaching them how to behave, how to love eachother, and how to respect others. We have hardly gotten to teaching them the gospel yet. A typical day would look something like this:

9am: We arrive on our sweet Hurricane bikes (pictures to follow)
9:30 am: We usually have told Joshua to put on his pants about 10 times already.
10 am: We sit down, usually by the swingset, and read from the Bible. This is always a favorite time for the older ones. The younger ones, when they quiet down, are very enthralled as well.
10:30 am: This week we did puzzles with them. They enjoyed the finished product but had no clue how to put it together. We learned one thing 100 pc puzzles don't work. 20 pc puzzles almost work. This is something that can teach them some good organizational lessons. We are working on it. With those that don't like puzzles, we have tried to get the others to color. The key we feel is to get them to sit mostly still from 10-11:30. It has worked some days, and other days it has been a nightmare.
12 am: Lunch time. Its kind of funny, on Friday we tried a new approach to get them to eat lunch. There are 2 kids who just don't eat their lunch. They don't want to eat, they are not hungry. So we took away their food. They cried and cried. Its kind of like reverse psychology. I found that funny.
1-3 pm: Nap time. For the kids, for Blaine and Melissa. By this time we are "hunt-mide" (dogtired).
3-5 pm: We either swing with the kids, go to the park, we try and do something active. I tried to play dodgeball with them yesterday. Ummm... They all wanted to get the ball. Didn't work well at all. We'll work on that.
5 pm: We go home to RB's on our sweet Hurricane bikes.

As you can see, we are trying to put some structure into the day. It doesn't always work, but God is good and I know he will work through the things we do throughout the day. This is getting very long, I hope I didn't lose you. The biggest most largest prayer request we have is for patience and love for the kids. Patience seems to be all spent by the end of the day. We love you all and hope you too are doing well and good.

God bless,
Blaine & Melissa Dueck