Upeme Christmas!

I have been out of the loop for awhile, and I am so sorry! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and has fun plans for New Years! Some of you may have heard I (Katie) had to go to South Africa to have a surgery, so I have been away from the internet for awhile…but I am back, the surgery went very well. I was taken care of very well, and am now recovering! Here is what has been happening:
A very wonderful woman who lives not too far from us here at Upeme and who also happens to be a pediatric doctor, comes to the orphanage once a month to check up on all the kids. She brings medicines and whatever else we might need. Her name is Dr. Carolyn Bolton (she is also the one who arranged everything in South Africa for my surgery - really amazing!) Most the time she comes with some gifts as well, usually from her garden. This time she came out to have a little Christmas celebration with the kids. She brought some of her family and friends to join in the festivities. Together they all brought presents, snacks, and a lot of fun.
Here is a picture of Dr. Bolton with Gift, Pamela and Boyd (all grade 5)

When we first got here, there was a dog named Scooby. She was a good dog but unfortunately belonged to somebody else. Well, Scooby has recently gone back to live with her family, and we decided we needed a dog to help give us some security and to teach the kids a little responsibility. We found an animal shelter in Lusaka and went to visit. We had originally decided on one dog, but after visiting the animal shelter we couldn’t decide on one so we picked out two. A few days later after we had brought some kids into town with us for church, we surprised them by taking them to the animal shelter to see if the two we had picked out would be good around kids. They were very gentle little puppies and it seemed like a good match. So now we have two new members here at Upeme.
The bigger one is a boy and is named Spot, the smaller one is a girl and is named Tango. They are really good dogs!


And finally Christmas Day: We wanted all the kids who weren’t able to go be with any family during the Christmas holiday to have really special Christmas Day with us at Upeme. (Christmas was also my first day back with the kids after my surgery.) First thing in the morning we got out the Christmas tree and decorations, also made some of our own decorations and put them on the tree. Also, when Dr. Bolton was here she brought us some food to make a special Christmas day lunch. This consisted of very nice chicken, potatoes, rice, cabbage, and lots of treats. The kids were so excited they started singing and dancing when we told them what they were having for lunch. After lunch we opened presents (Curtis did all the Christmas shopping and did a wonderful job), which everybody enjoys doing, and watched a movie on the projector. After it got dark we all went out to the soccer field and lit off a few fireworks (they were just little, but the kids were impressed nonetheless).
Here is a picture of Grain putting his newly decorated ornament on the Christmas tree. And this is a picture of (left to right) Boyd, Nelson, Gift (twin to Grain) and Maybin opening their presents.