Proud to be an American

Our recent American politics have made for interesting discussions with all of our South African friends and those from other countries that are also stationed here in Pretoria. Everywhere we go people want to talk about all the political news from the USA. 

This is not a post about politics, but an appreciation post of a beautiful trait that I see in Americans at home and those stationed with us here.  Americans care about kids.  I saw this when I worked in schools in the US and I continue to see it here.   When a link goes out to a fundraising site to raise money for the orphanage we help out at here, donations come pouring in from all over our the US, for children that people in the US have never even met! I have done two fundraisers now, one to ask for funds to help build more bedrooms at the orphanage and a second to ask for funds for school supplies for the kids.  I am blown away by your generosity!

Last weekend we made another trip to the orphanage and before our visit, the orphanage sent us a list of food staples and most needed school supplies.  I created a shared spreadsheet and sent the list out to about 15 American families here in South Africa.   Throughout the week my garage began to fill up with donations.  On Sunday, we visited with about five of the families and unloaded piles of stuff.  (It took a few of the guys almost an hour to carry in all the donations!)


After we fed the kids some pizza for lunch, we played!  Everywhere I looked there were happy kids and awesome volunteers...

 there was a group on the soccer field, sweating it out and playing soccer with the kids

Tracing the kids with sidewalk chalk-they LOVE this!

 a dance party with some of the little girls.

A friend brought her dog, Ellee,  for the kids to play with, and Ellee is so popular when she leaves for the day, the kids all help load her in the car to say goodbye!

Ellee's well wishers- saying goodbye!

A Nelson Mandela quote that I really like is:

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

I'd like to tweak Mandela's quote to leave out the "its" at the end, from what I see our American soul is devoted to children, no matter where they are in the world and I couldn't be prouder to call myself an American!