yes, ja, iye

When I made the decision to return to Uganda for a year after my first trip in 2013, I thought I was choosing to move to Africa over getting married, at least for the time being. I didn’t realize I could have both. I want to go on and on about how wonderful and unpredictable God is, but all I can do is sit here and smile and shake my head at the fact that He knew this was the plan all along. It really makes me wonder what He still has in store for us. 

When we first got engaged and started planning our wedding, we made plans like any typical couple—for one wedding. One ceremony. One reception. One celebration. One day. However, even that seemingly basic detail brought along its share of problems, the biggest being that we wanted our families at our wedding and we have family in America, the Netherlands, and Uganda and those places are inconveniently far apart. We talked about how many people would likely travel to each place and who would likely miss out, and the answer quickly became clear: It would be much easier for us to travel to three different places than to expect everyone else to travel to one. (Notice we said “easier to travel,” not “easier to plan three separate wedding celebrations.” The reality of that had not yet occurred to us.) So we set dates, booked plane tickets, and got started. 

People say planning a wedding from a distance is not easy. I will attest to that, but I am sure planning a wedding from any distance, be it three feet or three continents, is never easy. However, we had a whole poop load of people (thanks for that phrase, Dad) who were willing and (I think/hope) happy to help and go above and beyond what was expected of them, and because of them our weddings were beautiful and we were able to stay a little bit sane in the process. 

I spent hours doing Google searches and after two months remembered that Pinterest exists, so that was a fun revelation. In one Skype conversation with Aunt Debbie I tried explaining what I wanted the whole thing to look like: 

Me: I found pictures of centerpieces where you take a wooden round from a log and put the flowers and candles on that. And for giveaways we can do small wooden rounds with our names on them and magnets on the back. Powder boxes are great and we can use as much burlap as possible. I like wood, so any paneling or decorations we can find that fits with that—

Debbie: So basically you want your wedding Morton themed. 

Me: Well, the word I was shooting for was “rustic,” but yeah I guess…

Premarital counseling was also abnormal, as our sessions were via Skype with a pastor from America that I barely knew and Christian had never met. Pastor Carol and her husband are good friends of my family and had been missionaries in Nigeria for many years, so we thought she would have some relevant advice for a newlywed couple on the mission field. Between unstable internet connections and an eleven-hour time difference, we made about half of our appointments, but we had fun planning the ceremony together and getting advice on how to deal with conflict and make major decisions such as on which continent to live and raise children. 

One recurring issue in the counseling was where to keep dirty dishes. I like to keep them on the counter so the sink is available for use. Christian likes to keep them in the sink so our two-foot-long counter is available for use. Pastor Carol told us to use this as an opportunity to figure out how to resolve our differing opinions. The next week we came to her with our grand solution: “Pastor Carol, we figured it out! In the past week we haven’t had time to wash dishes at all, so now we have dirty dishes on the counter and in the sink!” I’m pretty sure that’s what she was going for. 

With school, the holiday program, the Noah’s Ark newspaper, and cantata all happening at the same time, things were beyond busy before we left Uganda. As we sat down on the airplane in Entebbe in mid-January we were finally able to take a deep breath and say, “Whew, okay, now it’s really happening!” 

One of the first things I did upon reaching Morton was to try on my sister Sami’s wedding dress. I will say, not having a dress until a week before the wedding was one of the more stressful parts of the long-distance thing. It fit, but we already had an appointment at a dress shop the next day so we still went to that to see my other options. After trying on a dozen dresses I hesitantly asked the woman who was helping us, “I have another dress in the car… is it okay if I bring that one in and try it on too?” The woman was so kind and said it was not a problem, and then confirmed that when she told me that yes, that was definitely the dress for me. (For anyone doing wedding dress shopping soon, I highly recommend Adorned by Grace, a store that gets donations of wedding dresses and formalwear to sell and uses the money to help refugees or sex trafficking victims, I can’t remember which but it’s a really good cause. The stores are located in Portland, Tacoma, and somewhere else.)

The ten days before the wedding flew by as I caught up on doctors appointments, eye appointments, making decorations, seeing family, welcoming some of Christian’s family to America, and finally…

Wedding #1  ::  January 28  ::  Morton

The two things people told me about your wedding day is that it flies by and you don’t remember much of anything. And that you don’t get to eat. And that it is hard to pee in a wedding dress. Okay, they told me more than two things. But those were the two main things. 

They were right and they were wrong. I got to eat and I never had to pee but I would imagine it would have been a struggle. Seriously, thought, the day did go quickly, but I never felt like I missed out on anything. 

In the Netherlands, it is tradition for the groom to pick up the bride from her house and they go to the wedding together. Christian came to get me from my parents’ house with his best man and brother, Thijs (who came from Europe for this) and groomsman Jared (who came from Las Vegas just for the day—we did not make it easy on people). 

Together with our photographers (my aunt and cousin) and bridesmaids (my three sisters) we went to a park for some photos and then on to the church for the ceremony. We thank God it was a beautiful January day, which means it was cold but it was sunny. 

I am not one of those girls who has had her wedding planned out since she was eight years old and just had to fit in the groom somewhere. In fact, the only things I had known for years was that my sisters would be my bridesmaids and I wanted to have foot washing in the ceremony. Instead of taking communion or pouring pink and blue sand in a jar or literally tying a knot, we demonstrated our service to one another by washing each other’s feet, a symbol of how we will serve one another in and through our marriage. Good enough, here in Uganda our feet turn red from dust every time we go out, so we have the opportunity to continue literally washing one another’s feet if we want. 

And before we knew it, we were married! 

During the reception we had our first dance ever while some of my family performed the most beautiful version of the song May You Have that I have ever heard. (By the way, if anyone has a recording of them singing it can you please let me know? I want it!) During our dances with our parents my dad informed me the song I had chosen was a funeral march, so whoops about that one. Christian’s dad made our gorgeous wedding cake and dozens of other people contributed with desserts, decorations, music, food… let me tell you, we are blessed. Thanks to all of you who were a part of it. Our only disappointment was that we didn’t get to spend more time with you that day. 

After that, we had a three-day honeymoon, a three-day trip to Iowa so Christian could meet Grandpa Tom who couldn’t travel to the wedding, a presentation at church about our work at Noah’s Ark (unfortunately it snowed that morning and only that day we realized it was Super Bowl Sunday, so we forgive those of you who couldn’t make it), I had a dentist appointment (where I got the first cavity of my life), and before we knew it we were off to the Netherlands for…

Wedding #2  ::  February 18  ::  Delft

One of my most frequent conversations with Dutch people in the last month goes like this: 

Dutch person: How do you find the Netherlands? 

Me: Flat!

I’m not kidding. I have never been somewhere as flat as the Netherlands. I don’t think the concrete floor in our house is as flat as the Netherlands. When Christian told me Iowa had hills I laughed at him, and now I understand why he said that. It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, it’s just so flat. 

The main differences between Wedding #1 and Wedding #2 were that a) it was all Christian’s family instead of mine, and b) it was mostly in Dutch. Since Christian’s father, who speaks very little English, gave a toast in English in America, I thought I, who speak very little Dutch, could try doing my vows in Dutch in the Netherlands. That was the single part for which I was the most worried. But I did it, so yay for that! The pastor said I sounded like the queen because she is also not a native Dutch speaker and has an accent, but what I heard was “You sound like a queen” and I’m okay with that. 

This time we switched it up a bit and I picked up Christian from his house, then we went to take some photos around Delft before going to the church. 

When we arrived at the church we started with a “small” lunch with about eighty people, cake cutting (in which I was not allowed to smash it in his face because this was pre-ceremony—I think he planned it like that), and then Christian and I hid away in an office while the rest of the guests arrived for the ceremony. 

In the absence of my own family, Aat, Christian’s father, walked me down the aisle. He had asked me months ago and I considered it quite an honor. 

This ceremony had much more music than the first, with a range of languages as we had songs in English, Dutch, Luganda, and a Nigerian language of which we don’t even know the name. The worship team was fantastic, and about half of them were Christian’s cousins. 

To take into account the fact that we were already married (an unusual problem for a pastor to consider, he told us), we repeated our vows in the past tense and simply showed people our rings instead of exchanging them again. We didn’t want people to feel like they had missed the real wedding, but we also didn’t want to ignore the fact that this was not our first time. The pastor asked us to answer his questions/vow-things in both English and Dutch, and Christian decided to throw in Luganda for fun, so instead of “I do” we got to answer with “Yes, ja, iye.” After all that was said and done, we made our way back downstairs for the reception, which meant two hours of shaking hands and giving the traditional Dutch three kisses on the cheek and grabbing a snack or two when we had the time. 

A very generous friend rented us an apartment for the week after that so we were able to stay downtown after the wedding and finally have a bit of time to ourselves. The next week was a mix of resting and sightseeing. A highlight was certainly our surprise trip to Paris, which Christian had booked months ago but didn’t tell me where we were going until the train pulled up and said “Paris” on the side. It should probably concern me that he is so good at keeping secrets, but it was so much fun! We went up the Eiffel Tower, toured Notre Dame, walked through the Louvre gardens, almost got stuck atop the Sacre Coeur, and made a list of other things to do next time we visit. 

We got dressed up again later that week to have unlimited time for photos with Thijs. It seems as if everywhere you go in Delft it is a beautiful backdrop for a photo, but perhaps that’s mostly me noticing major differences between Dutch and American architecture. After seeing a few more things in the Netherlands and staying with his family a few days (and eating a lot of cheese and other food), we packed up our things (again) and flew back to Uganda for… 

Wedding #3  ::  March 11  ::  Noah’s Ark

With each passing wedding we got a bit more relaxed. So much so that when we met with the directors to discuss wedding plans we almost forgot to order a wedding cake. The children never would have forgiven us for that. 

Our wedding in Uganda had two objectives: Ours was to celebrate with the children, as they are the family who has surrounded us in our relationship and the ones who have seen it progress in person. Piet and Pita’s was to use our relationship and marriage as an example to their children of how these things are supposed to progress (marriage before children, things like that). 

I was blessed to have a friend from camp, Leya, come visit just a few days after we arrived, and we were so busy showing her around and going for safari together that we didn’t have a big hand in wedding preparations. Then, as soon as we came back from safari Christian’s mother surprised us with a visit and became the only person aside from us who made it to all three weddings, so we each had a representative from our home country. 

We didn’t want to pick favorite kids to be in the wedding, so as soon as everyone was in the church and we were ready, some aunties called all the boys and girls to come outside to be flower girls and peg boys (the equivalent of a ring bearer without the ring). It was the most chaotic wedding by far, but so cute to see them all walk in waving their flowers and peg boy-streamer-things. We repeated our vows, the kiss, and the pronouncement of husband and wife, and then got to sit and watch some of the children, teenagers, staff and visitors present love songs for us. I tell you, there were many talented people there that day. 

We learned that a major part of Ugandan weddings is feeding one another the cake. The pastor instructed me to sit on Christian’s lap and slowly and intimately feed him his piece of cake and glass of soda, and then he fed me mine. You know how when you take a bite and then think of something to say, it feels like it takes forever to get the food down your throat? Try having over a hundred people crowding around to literally watch you eat. 

The pastor surprised us at the end of the ceremony by having us dance again. To make Christian feel more at ease we made light of it and tangoed up and down the aisles, after which the children all got up and started dancing with us. They know how to celebrate. 

We ate supper in the children’s home and ended with singing Happy Birthday to Christian because, by the way, it was his birthday too! I got off easy this year by just getting him some candy and a wife. 

Wedding #3.5  ::  March 15  ::  Noah’s Ark

And you all thought we only had three weddings. 

The youth wanted to put on a special celebration for us, so on Wednesday we got dressed up for the last time (those of you who only had to worry about fitting into your wedding dress once don’t know how lucky you are) and went back to church for a love-themed youth service. They made us dance again, presented more love songs, another missionary couple gave a message about what love is and how it can sustain us in marriage, and we ended with a short disco that reminded me of a junior high dance—girls on one side, boys on the other, half the people just standing there and the other half in a circle around the few people who are confident enough to dance. It did not make me miss junior high. 

I want to say a gihugic (that’s huger than giant) thank you to everyone who helped make our weddings what they were. I won’t try to list all the names because I will inevitably leave people out, but specifically thank you to both of our mothers for doing the bulk of the coordinating in America and the Netherlands and for making sure those days were what we hoped they would be. We will look back with only good memories, trust me. 

So now… we are married. And we’re pretty sure we’ve had enough weddings to last a lifetime. It is our first day post-trip and post-guests and this is when we begin to figure out what this married life looks like for us. Here’s to our new normal. 

Daisy's birthday

With 180 children on the compound, we end up with a lot of birthdays. Not quite 180 separate days because some are twins and triplets, but still. It’s a lot. 

They are all celebrated, but when you have two or three birthdays a week and the celebrations are all the same, they quickly start to blend together. With some of the children we are closer to, we try and give them something extra, more akin to a children’s birthday party at home. Yesterday was Daisy’s birthday, and in the spirit of being somewhere warm again, we threw a pool party… on our verandah… 

Daisy was found when she was a week old, wrapped in a plastic bag and left on a garbage pile in a local market. Though Noah’s Ark has social workers who investigate each child’s case when they come here, sometimes nothing can be found of a child’s family or situation. Daisy was one such case. Where she came from, who abandoned her, where her family is now, why she was left—it is all a mystery. 

She came to Noah’s Ark on March 11, 2014. It was Christian’s birthday, so as a “birthday present” she became his baby. He spent hours feeding her, caring for her, playing with her, teaching her how to walk, and showing her that she was loved and valued. 

Now, Daisy is the largest three-year-old I have seen in a long time. Seriously, my arms get tired when I hold her for more than a few minutes. She is tall and stocky and healthy. For awhile she never walked anywhere; instead, she half-ran, half-skipped wherever she was going, which was adorable on her cute little chubby legs. Now she has learned to pace herself a bit better and I am trying not to be disappointed by it. She talks and sings, though not as much as some of her friends of the same age. Her attention span is shorter than this sentence. But that’s normal for a three-year-old. 

We barely made it back from our travels in time for her birthday. Christian has thrown her a birthday party for the last two years and we didn’t want to disappoint, but our house was too full of suitcases to allow children to enter just yet. The solution? A pool party! It turns out five children can easily fit into two child-sized inflatable pools, and then magically they don’t care about coming inside anymore. 

A moment of honesty: A couple weeks ago while we were in the Netherlands and beginning to think about coming back to Uganda soon, I asked Christian, “Is it bad that I don’t miss the children?” I love the children, don’t get me wrong, but the break from work and constant people was better than I expected. The thought made me nervous about coming back because if I didn’t really miss them, would I be happy to see them? 

Thank God, the answer was yes. 

From Thomas helping me fill the pools bucket by bucket to Jaella’s quivering lip because she was so cold in the water, the afternoon was a blessing and a reminder of how to love well. 

Daisy

Jaella, 7 years, and cold

Josephine, 3 years

Christy, 10 years

Blessing, 2 years

After swimming, they sat down outside for cake and juice. We were cruel and watched them shiver for a minute before finding enough towels. Kids are cute when they shiver. 

Because we made them miss bath time in the children’s home, we considered them clean from swimming and put Daisy in her fancy birthday dress (which is actually her flower girl dress for next week, but she kept it relatively clean) and the rest in pajamas and went to the home for supper. 

After eating, the aunties always set up a table in the home especially for the birthday boy/girl. Some volunteers had distributed balloons, which added to the birthday mood. In a chorus of about a hundred children’s voices, we sang Happy Birthday, complete with the verses “How old are you now?” and “You look like an angel” (you know, just in case the answer to the previous verse was depressing).  

On the count of three, this toddler was given a giant knife to make the first cut in her cake. Don’t worry, there was plenty of adult supervision nearby. A handful of her closest friends came to the table with plates to collect pieces of cake to distribute among all the children in the home. The pieces are tiny, but with so many birthdays going on it adds up to plenty of sugar. 

Once everyone had finished their one or two bites of cake, it was time for presents. Some presents come directly from sponsors and some come from general donations given to Noah’s Ark. Children are given a certain number of presents depending age. Since Daisy was turning three, she got to open three presents. Many children like to hold up their gifts and show them off for everyone to see. Daisy was more interested in wearing her new headband and sunglasses and trying to eat her toy microphone like an ice cream cone. 

There was one more round of Happy Birthday, and then the celebrations were over. Christian brought her presents back home—I mean we brought her presents back to our home (because it’s the same one now, woohoo!)—so they wouldn’t get lost or broken or stolen or anything else that often happens to personal belongings when you are a toddler living with a hundred other people and can’t remember what belongs to you and what doesn’t. 

All in all, I’d say it wasn’t bad for our first time throwing a birthday party together. And if it was, well, with this many kids around we can get in lots of practice. 

because I love you

“Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion. But strictly speaking, there is no call to that. Service is what I bring to the relationship and is the reflection of my identification with the nature of God. Service becomes a natural part of my life. God brings me into the proper relationship with Himself so that I can understand His call, and then I serve Him on my own out of a motivation of absolute love. Service to God is the deliberate love-gift of a nature that has heard the call of God. Service is an expression of my nature, and God’s call is an expression of His nature. Therefore, when I receive His nature and hear His call, His divine voice resounds throughout His nature and mine and the two become one in service. The Son of God reveals Himself in me, and out of devotion to Him service becomes my everyday way of life.” (Oswald Chambers)

That’s a bit different than how we usually serve, isn’t it? 

The first week Christian and I met with our service life group, we asked our six students why we serve. They gave some different answers: “Because it feels good when you help someone.” “Because there are lots of people less fortunate than us.” “Because Jesus tells us to.” I liked the last answer because she didn’t say she liked to serve, or even pretend to like it. She knew that because Jesus commanded it then she should do it. 

If my memory serves me right, no one said we should serve because we love God. Not that the other reasons are bad, but those aren’t where service should start. 

Not that I am a very good example. 

As of late, I’m afraid my service has not been motivated by love. Otherwise I wouldn’t resent it so much. Especially in the past five days, the workload has been so much I simply want to leave, forget about it all and not come back for a long, long time. 

The other day I was singing a song called “The More I Seek You,” and a new verse Auntie Tina wrote says, “Jesus, your love is overwhelming me.” I feel like I am overwhelmed by everything except that. I kept singing, hoping it would become true, but the weight has yet to be lifted. 

What is motivating my service? 

Duty. The things I am doing now are my job. It’s straightforward. I am expected to do them and my whole life I have not been one to fall short of expectations placed on me. 

Pride. I want the cantata to go well. I don’t want it to fail. I don’t want the holiday program to fail. Partly for the children, but also because it will reflect poorly on me. I want to do all of this and handle everything with such grace and peace that people look at me and shake their heads and say, “I really don’t know how she manages all that.”

The children. I want them to learn how to read. It will get them far. I want them to learn discipline and commitment, so I put in extra time to teach them that. I want them to grow up into people who love and respect God. I also want them to like me, but that is not a priority. 

If we serve without love, it is as much use as a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal, something that serves no purpose and of which people are happy to be free. I don’t want that to be me. I don’t want that to be anyone. 

Can you have service without joy? Not when it is motivated by absolute love. 

The other day Christian was stressed about some things (he also has a major workload at the moment) and expressed how fed up he was with all he had to do at work and that his house and kitchen were a mess but he had no time to clean. Even though my schedule was also full, while he was gone I went to his house and washed all his dishes (there were a lot). He didn’t ask me to. In fact, if he had I would have done it grudgingly. He did not expect me to. Normally, I don’t mind washing dishes, but this time I loved it because I knew it would make him happy. I washed and rinsed and stacked with joy and it was honestly the best part of my day. When I finished, I left a full dish rack and large kitchen towel stacked with dishes—and when I say stacked I mean stacked. It is one of my skills. Next to the towel, though it was probably obvious, I left an index card that said, “because I love you”. 

Every act of service we do should carry that message. I should be able to tack it onto every ballet lesson, every cooked meal, every library time and every game with the children. I can’t remember the last time I served with joy just because I knew it would make God happy. 

Some time last year, six-year-old Isaac was at my house playing. He handed me an empty soda bottle and told me to keep it. Now, if I kept everything a child told me to keep, my house would be chock-full of toys, cardboard boxes, rubber bands, coloring sheets, glitter, bottle caps, hats, plastic bags, birthday presents, letters from sponsors, toothbrushes—you name it. I will admit, often I tell them yes and then throw it away and they never know. But don’t tell the children. 

I tried to give the bottle back to him, knowing he likes to play with things like that outside, but he insisted. Finally, I asked him, “Isaac, why do you want me to keep your bottle?” 

Without missing a beat, he said, “Because I love you.” 

He caught me off guard. In two-and-a-half years, that is the only time one of the children has volunteered those words. Sure, they repeat when I say I love them, but this came out of nowhere. Isaac could have told me to keep a rotten, dead rat for that reason and it still would have made my week. (I sentimentally held onto the bottle for a few weeks, and then it too ended up in the trash can. Don’t tell Isaac. But I still think it was very sweet of him.)

“Because I love you.” It’s like the beautiful antithesis of “because I said so.” 

How often we miss that little note from God. 

God, why did you send Jesus? “Because I love you.” 

Why do you forgive us even when we turn away from you over and over and over again? “Because I love you.” 

Why did you make it rain all morning so inside is cozy and outside is not too hot today? “Because I love you.” 

Why did you bring encouraging friends into my life when I couldn’t pull myself up? “Because I love you.” 

In college I heard a speaker at a conference, and I don’t remember her name and I don’t remember what she talked about except for this one tidbit: “It was then that I realized I was asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, ‘How can I serve you, Lord?’ I should have been asking, ‘How can I love you, Lord?’”

There is a right way to start, and it is not with the act of service. 

A resounding gong, my ass. I want to be an expression of God. 

Who are we? Olympians!

The Olympic spirit has reached Noah’s Ark! Here’s how it happened: I did not follow the Rio Olympics. To be fair, I never follow the Olympics when they are actually happening; I have always relied on our family in Iowa to record the events I like to watch and then I get to enjoy them over and over again for the next decade. Here is what I know about the most recent events: 

Two runners fell and helped each other to the finish line. 

Some blind runners had faster times than the ones who could see. 

There was a very short gymnast and a very tall volleyball player. 

Americans won a lot of medals. 

Those are based off two articles and a few photos I saw on Facebook. However, I saw them at an opportune time, just as I was brainstorming and preparing for our second term holiday. As I was making a list of games and activities, I added “Olympic events” to the list. Eight sloppy pages and two hours of brainstorming later, I had an arrow to that note that said, “Could we make the whole holiday an Olympic event?” and three pages of notes on exactly how we would do that. So we did. 

I divided fifty primary school children into eight countries, chosen by how easy it was to pronounce the capitol and how few national languages the children would have to remember: China, Tanzania, Germany, Holland (I know it’s not a country, but the children here never call it the Netherlands), America, Brazil, New Zealand, and Kenya. Because our kids are not very familiar with the Olympics, we used it not only as an opportunity to keep them entertained for a few weeks, but also to teach them about a world event. 

We began with our first Olympic Craft, where the olympians (as we referred to them all holiday) made flags for their countries and bandanas to wear to the events. Some actually recreated their country’s flag, while others got creative and did something totally different. As long as they worked on it together, they were fine. 

That Wednesday evening, we held our very own Olympic opening ceremonies to get the children excited about the event… and it worked! We showed a video clip of this year’s lighting ceremony in Olympia, and then I lit our official torch (my kerosene lantern) with a sparkler. I made sure to look the part of the women from the ceremony by wearing Christian’s kanzu (official Ugandan dress for men) backwards and tying the arms around my neck. Turns out I can be Greek in a pinch. 

We also showed them a video from this year’s opening ceremony and some clips from different events to give them an overall idea of what the Olympics are about. The country leaders took part in passing the Olympic flame around, we gave some general guidelines for the games, and they left that night with a newfound enthusiasm for their countries. They also began the mantra, “Who are we? Olympians!” that carried on through the following weeks. 

On Friday we had our first competitions. Some teachers organized field events and countries participated in ball passing, climbing, rope skipping, javelin (frisbee), hurdles (shoe boxes), and two different relays. 

We boosted the Olympic spirit by painting the Olympic rings on as many cheeks as possible in those three hours. It was a good start to the games!

The second week of holiday, our event was a night scavenger hunt. Different adults hid around the compound and each one had to make the sound of a particular animal. The countries were each given a paper with the animals written in order. They had to find the animals in that order and get a sticker from each one before the other countries returned or the time ran out. For some, it was a good lesson in working together as a team. For others, is was an eye opener to me of how poorly some people work as a team. So we gave them more practice. 

As our craft that week, the participants worked together to make the Olympic rings. They decorated small yogurt containers in the five colors with paint and paper, and I strung them together with twine, using chopped-in-half toilet paper rolls to space them out. (That idea came from the two huge sacks of yogurt containers I had sitting in my house and a craft I found online on how to make a dragon out of paper cups.)

As we got to go swimming this holiday, our olympians also had competitions in the pool: swimming, a water relay, and not breathing. Swimming was a mix of running and swimming since not many of them actually know how to swim. In the relay, they had to run in waist-deep water while keeping their hands on their heads. I asked them beforehand if it was easier to run in water or on land. Most said water, so they had quite a shock when the race began. Not breathing was to see who could hold their breath the longest. No one drowned, so we were all winners! 

Of course not everyone is good at sports and games, so the events in the last week were brain games. They practiced spelling in an old-fashioned spelling bee and math in a counting game with dice. 

Throughout the holiday, I had been giving them facts about their countries, such as population, on which continent it is found, famous people from the country, and what languages are spoken. On the last day of holiday, they took a quiz to see how much they remembered from what had been given them. I was quite impressed with the results! Apparently they listen better than I thought. 

We always hold a disco on the last Friday of the holiday, so our final event was a dance-off between the countries. It is fun to see the ones who are too shy to dance, the ones who know how to dance well, and the ones who cannot dance at all but sure think they can. The last are by far the most entertaining. 

To wrap up the Olympic events, we held a closing ceremony. We gave gold medals to the country leaders for each event while they brandished their country flags for the last time. (Sometimes I wonder why people donate certain things to orphanages in Africa—like plastic medals—but it turns out they come in handy!) After announcing the winner of each event, it was time to tally up the overall scores. I have no idea how they do it in the real Olympics, but I gave the countries one point for every bronze medal, two for every silver and three for every gold and the country with the most points was the overall winner. We fashioned a winner’s podium out of picnic tables and chairs to celebrate their achievements. In the end, New Zealand took bronze, Kenya took silver, and China brought home the gold. As is tradition, we played the Chinese national anthem (which of course the children had never heard before) and as is not tradition gave them sparklers to hold (not too close to the grass roof) to symbolize the extinguishing of the Olympic torch. 

All in all, the children had fun and I would dare to say the Olympics were successful. 

As a bonus, a few days after the holiday a representative of the UN who is also on the Olympic Committee came to visit Noah’s Ark. We hung the rings again and the schoolchildren had another morning of competitions to show him some of the local games they like to play. He was enthusiastic about our program and it was good for the children to meet someone who has actually been to the Olympics. 

Now I am getting used to hearing sentences from the staff that begin with, “When we do the Olympics next year…”