June 16, 2010: Acacia Village

By Wednesday morning, Ana Luisa was doing great. We were so relieved to start to see her fun, playful side that we had gotten a glimpse of in pictures start to come out. She started to show an interest in toys and in her big brother. She also showed us that she could not only hold her head up, but actually even sit up on her own. Together we came up with an awesome game: throwing toys off the edge of the bed. Although she doesn't have much muscle to speak of in her legs, her arms are a totally different matter...this girl can throw! It's pretty amazing. I think she can throw things further and harder than Juan Pablo (although he's by far the faster runner of the two). While Ana Luisa and I hung out together at the guest house, throwing things mostly, Jeff and Juan Pablo went with a couple of the other families to visit Acacia Village, a project that our adoption agency's aid branch, Christian World Foundation, has been working on for the last couple years. They are building a children's home, women's health clinic, classrooms, and housing for adoptive parents and mission teams who come to Acacia Village. Juan Pablo was excited to go to Acacia Village because it meant lots of quality time with his new buddy, Zewdu.

Zewdu is our adoption agency's driver, and he and Juan Pablo became fast friends. Zewdu has a son who is just a few months older than Juan Pablo, so he really knows the way to a two-year-old boy's heart. He let Juan Pablo listen to music on his cell phone, and together they sang many rousing renditions of "Larry Boy". Juan Pablo would always get so excited to see him, and is still talking about him now.

Jeff and Juan Pablo enjoyed getting a tour of the first phase of the project, which is almost complete.

When they returned from Acacia Village, Juan Pablo was happy to discover that his little sister was still the fun little playmate she had been in the morning. Ana Luisa was fascinated by him, and immediately started trying to copy things that he was doing. And finally, that night, we actually got both children to sleep at the same time.

And of course, it was such a momentous occasion that instead of going to sleep ourselves, we started taking pictures.

To be continued...