Holy Ground

Have you ever had a day, or maybe a moment, where you have felt you were standing on Holy ground? Well that was us today, we met our daughter. Standing in that baby room in the orphanage with my baby girl in my arms, looking at all the sweet, priceless, valuable babies all around...it was Holy ground. Like stepping into one of those monumental churches with steeples, painted ceilings and stain glass windows. Only it was better, as if the presence of Jesus was so thick you could touch it.
But let me start at the beginning.

We arrived yesterday into Durban. It was a long day, about 26 hours of travelling, but we made it. We had booked a rental car and headed straight to the counter outside the airport. We loaded up the car and got in. Arnie was the designated driver because there was no way I would be driving on the wrong side of the road. Arnie was nervous, which in turn made me nervous, but after a few rounds around the parking lot to get used to driving we were off on the highway! We rented a GPS because we had no idea where we were going. After a few minutes the GPS battery light started to flash, we plugged it in and thought we were good. We made it to our guesthouse as the GPS turned off. We realized the cord wasn't charging it and now we had no GPS. We were ok though as we had made it to the guesthouse and now had wifi. We unloaded into our room, and immediately hit the bed. We set our alarm as we know from travelling, you never turn the lights out when your exhausted and expect to wake up after an hour! We were set to meet our social worker, Robyn, at 5pm so we set out in search of supper at the mall 5 minutes away. The mall is huge and so not what we expected to find in Africa, I kept saying, "This is not the Africa I know!" You can find anything here! We have been warned many times about safety and not going to certain places so we were happy to find a place we could roam about safely. We made it back to the B&B and met with Robyn. She is the kindest lady and I don't know how she does her job. She drives all over meeting people, going to orphanages and doing paperwork, she really has a heart of gold. After we met with her, we headed to our room to lounge. Realizing we won't be going out after dark anymore, we settled in to our room. We played around with Isaac on the bed, watched a movie and went to bed early.
This morning when we woke up, we were set to be in Ladysmith at the orphanage at 230pm. We were giving ourselves 3 hours to get there so we went to mall again to grab coffee and walk before we left. I loaded up a map to Ladysmith at the guest house but I erased it at the mall...this sent us into a bit of a panic spiral. We drove back to the guesthouse and I loaded the map again. At this point we were panicking over the GPS not working, and the fact that we were about to drive 3 hours on the wrong side of the road in a country we had never been to. We debated going back to the airport and throwing the GPS across the counter and yelling at someone about stranding us in the middle of nowhere...but we settled on following the loaded map and hoping for the best. Getting to the highway proved to be interesting....I think Arnie would use a different term...but my job was navigation and to randomly yell, "Stay left!" We arrived in Ladysmith about an hour early and were able to check into our new guesthouse. Being in a new country is overwhelming, especially when you have been warned man times about your safety. Upon driving into Ladysmith, we realized we were not in the safest town and I was panicking again. I had no idea what to expect from our guesthouse other than our friend, Laura, had stayed here last week and didn't say anything bad about it. Well it is beautiful here. We were shown to our loft room and I had a few tears. I know that sounds crazy, but I am bringing my baby here and I needed to know we would be safe. Our room is so cozy and the fact that it is up high in a loft above the main kitchen and dining hall is so nice. It feels so safe, that is why I had tears. I know I can bring our girl here and we would be ok.
Quickly after checking in we gathered some stuff, loaded a map and we were off. The orphanage turns out to be about 7 minutes away so we made it there quickly. Nerves were high and I was so excited we would finally meet our daughter. Isaac was excited too and had big plans on kissing and holding his sister. We went through the gate and into a large compound with many buildings. We went to the reception and checked in. We had no idea what to expect. The lady went and go the social worker who came to greet us. She took us straight to the baby room and said she wanted to see if we knew which one was our daughter before telling us. We walked into the room and there, standing in the middle, was the cutest, tiniest little girl. I knew right away she was ours and walked over and knelt to my knees. I let Isaac go to her first and stayed beside him. He went up to her and gave her a kiss on her tiny head, then he came back to me and put his head in my lap and did a funny dance. Next was my turn, I held out my hand to see if she would be ok if I touched her. She didn't seem upset so I went for it. I picked her up and gave her a kiss. She was so tiny and precious, she is the sweetest little girl. Next was Arnie's turn. I was making him take a video so I passed her to him. I could tell he was a little nervous but they were playing little games and she was not upset to be held by him either. We spent the next 2.5 hours playing with the kids and holding her.
 This is where i talk about Isaac. I had no idea how he would react, but he blew us away. He was so kind to the kids, sharing little snacks, handing them out to all the kids, playing with them and with his new sister. He asked to hold her and took her hand a couple of times to drag her across the room to me. I didn't know he completely understood what we were doing there, but he did. He knew that she was now his. My heart was so full watching him. When it was dinner time, he sat down and joined the crew for dinner. He sat at the little table across from the other little kids and ate his sandwich with them. He did such a good job, I was so proud of him. I wasn't sure if he would be overwhelmed, or scared to be there or worried about sharing us...but he seemed to be so understanding and trusting of us that we would not leave him. We made sure he had access to us even with all the kids climbing all over. He is such a confident boy and that shined today!
We were able to feed our girl and see her get her bath. I played with her and held her as much as she would allow. A few times she laid her head down on me and just rested. I thought she must be tired to have laid her head on me, but she didn't fall asleep...It dawned on me that maybe she was just cuddling! Whatever it was, I had the same feeling when I held Isaac, I knew we were going to be ok. She has moved right into our hearts and we are delighted that she will be ours forever. She is such a sweetheart, I don't know how we got chosen to be her parents, but we do not take it lightly.
Well, we are off to bed as we have an early morning and we get to have our girl with us for the day! It is a holiday here tomorrow so they said we should just take her for the day and bring her back for 5pm...no problem on our end with that!