Hey!
We left cold, rainy Amsterdam on Tuesday afternoon and arrived in sunny, HOT South Africa Wednesday morning. We had a lovely little lay-over in London where we ate at our favorite airport restaurant called Giraffe (appropriate right…on our way to AFRICA ..haha 
) and hopped on a half-empty flight to Jo’berg. Ten and a half hours isn’t so bad when you have a whole row of seats to yourself. We each watched the Michael Jackson movie “This is It” and then slept pretty much until we landed..woohoo!
We spent the next two days at a place called the House of Hope which is an orphan home in the township of Temba…about an hour and a half away from where we were staying in Jo’berg. My (kate) dad has a non-profit organization that does work in Africa and he and some other people built the orphan home which opened about a year ago.
The first day we painted their “community” room and played/hung out with the kids. The second day we brought them some new clothes and toys…then had a party with them complete with Kentucky Fried Chicken, balloons, streamers, cupcakes, and music….it was AMAZING.
It’s hard to put into words what an incredible time we had with the kids and the house mothers/helpers. The warmth that you feel from these kids is so real. We had so much fun running around, playing in the dirt, running in the grass…I think we had a better time than the kids! We laughed a lot, cried even more and it broke our hearts when we had to say goodbye.
We know a lot of you have been asking if there is a way that you could donate to the orphan kids–we will get that information to you as soon as we can.
Here are some pictures from our few days with these wonderful people! -j&k-
Such a sweet girl.
Aben spreading some laughter.
Jill getting some awesome braids put in her hair.
They loved our sunglasses. They now have our sunglasses
Miles jamming with the rhythm section.
He is the sweetest boy ever.
She was excited earlier in the day because Elizabeth is my middle name. Maybe I was overboard in this snapshot with my excited-ness
So much fun happening on the lawn.
Jim holding the kiddos.
Two of the kids Love them.
Nope. No words for how much this kid stole our hearts.
Mr. Snuggle munchkin.
Ahh…so precious.
Getting some sweet braids!
Jason painting the walls of the community room.
Jill hanging with the kids.
Not really sure what they were looking at but they are cute doing it! And that’s my dad
The ladies getting their paint on…yes, we literally got it all over ourselves! So fun!
Miles playing with the kids.
Soccer time.
Playing on the green grass.
LOve, love, love them.
Learning the song “Home” that they sang with us at the Coca-Cola Dome in Jo’berg.
Some more singing.
Ashley and some of the girls backstage.
Holding hands, walking to the stage.
There were 13,000 people there and the kids did GREAT!
Group shot.
