This morning we were to head to the orphanage in Montego Bay that Bruce and I had visited on a previous trip - Robin’s Nest Children’s Home. I had talked with the directors before coming and asked them what we could bring that the kids could use. She gave me sizes of clothes and shoes that were needed. We had brought along several suitcases just for Robin’s Nest. We loaded up and started the hour and a half drive to MoBay. I was a little concerned about how we would find it, as it is up the mountain and there are just no real road signs.
But somehow God led us to the right turn off, and we started the bouncy 30 minute ride up the bumpy and windy one-lane road. Up, up, up the mountain we went, stopping for goats, cows and chickens to move out of our way. Finally, from below we saw the buildings that are part of the orphanage and turned onto the steep, curving driveway.
As we rounded the corner approaching the parking area, there standing right in the middle of the drive was a little boy holding a long rope up in the air and with the other hand, was batting a ball attached to the other end. This little boy had a sparkling new tetherball! I turned to look at Bruce. His eyes were open wide in amazement. And there, behind the little boy, was an old tire leaning up against the fence. Everything we needed to build a tetherball pole was in plain sight, staring right at us, in front of the children’s home.
We climbed out of the vans and went in to find the director. After our tour of the bright, clean and beautiful orphanage filled with little ones, I told our guide about the boy in the driveway, that we had an extra pole and a bag of cement along, and asked her if it would be okay if we made them a tetherball pole. “Of course!” she said. “You know, I don’t know where that ball came from, actually. He found it this morning in a bucket and asked me if he could play with it. I’ve never seen it before today.” We just smiled. All sixteen of us knew exactly where that tetherball came from.
While the guys and Jama were putting together the tetherball pole, I helped orchestrate some cleaning projects at the home. We decided that we wanted the kids to be able to serve those who serve the kids. So, they swept, mopped, washed and cleaned. As they were working on the chores, I unpacked the suitcases full of clothes and shoes that we had brought along.
On the day before we left home, I had a basket of clothes come into our resale store. There was a swimsuit in that basket that I couldn’t sell, but something told me to buy it anyway and take it along. It wasn’t one of the things that Robin’s Nest had asked for, but somehow I felt like I needed to take it. My suitcases were already packed. So I took the swimsuit home and stuffed it in my carry on bag.
As we were pulling things out at Robin’s Nest, the director took the swimsuit out, held it up, and said, “Oh, this is perfect! I just saw that the swimsuit that Sue has been wearing is way too small. It is a size 4T. She needs a size 10/12.” Oh my goodness, I thought, that is small! She called Sue over and handed it to her. A few minutes later, Sue came out to model her new swimsuit. It fit her perfectly. She did a little dance in front of me, hugged me, and ran off to the pool. All I could think was, yay God!
After our team got done with their cleaning, several of the girls changed and got in the pool with the kids at the orphanage. They swam and splashed and played. A few of the girls stayed inside and did crafts with the kids. Several got books and had kids on their laps, reading to them.
We ate lunch at the orphanage and when it was nap time, it was time for us to go. We piled back in to go back down, down, down the mountain.
We got back in to Negril and stopped at Rock Cliff for dinner. It was earlier today and when we got there, dinner wasn’t quite ready. We walked through the grass toward the ocean where we could watch the sunset. The sunsets in Negril are, in my opinion, the most beautiful on the entire planet. Really, you should see them.
As we stood there watching the sun go down, one of the girls turned around with an “ah-ha” look on her face. She looked at the others in the group, and then, it was almost as if I could see the lightbulbs go off for each one of the kids at the exact same time.
She walked over to me and said excitedly, “Jen, why don’t you guys buy this place and use it for the ministry? You could have the orphanage here!” Bruce and I looked at each other and smiled. Yes, that’s kind of what we had been thinking since the day we dropped Ms. Pat off and she puzzled us with her words, then we saw the hotel from the ocean later and realized that we had seen this same place two years before from next door. The kids all started to buzz with excitement. Bruce and I decided that we would try to talk to Mr. Allen sometime and see what he had to say about that. But tonight, he was no where to be found.
We wandered around a little before it got too dark to see. We ate our dinner and went back to our hotel for some playing in the swimming pool before bed. Bruce and I contemplated the discussion about Rock Cliff...what if?
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