Lar Betania (Bethany House)

 

                     There is an orphanage here in town that is sponsored by the church that we work with.  Many of the short term mission teams that come to Brazil spend time doing work projects around the property.  But mostly they love to come and play with the kids.  There are about 30 kids there now and they live divided in 5 houses with house parents/mothers.  The kids are from 10 months to late teenage years.  Few are true orphans the others have parents who are incapable (drug addicts, in prison…) of taking care of the child.  We have spent time at the orphanage when work teams are here and lately I’ve been taking the girls over on Saturday mornings just to play.  We usually show up as the kids are finishing up their chores.  As we start to play on the playground kids wander over and before I know it Noelle is in the charge of three or four “mothering” 8-12 year olds and Samara is giggling and testing out her growing Portuguese vocabulary.  I love to just sit and watch the kids play, to have Elle come and hold my hand and, to have Erik ask me to take pictures of him doing “stunts”, to hear their laughter and to have a pocket full of candies to hand out.  Below are just a few pictures of these sweet kids.

getting dizzy

Erik the stunt man

Who says that carting off piles of leaves isn't fun?!

Samara and her new friends playing house

Crutches smutches...I cruise pretty fast with my plastic chair

Finger fencing championship of the world!

A little help