How many times in your life has someone sung the song “Happy Birthday” to you? You may think about how old you are, toss a few extra in, and come up with some kind of number. Now imagine if you had lived your whole life & had never had anyone sing that song to you. Oh sure you’d heard the song on TV and in movies, you knew about it, but had never heard anyone actually sing it to you– to say they wanted to celebrate the birth of YOU. In fact, you aren’t really sure when you were born because no one ever took any notice of it. Someone told you what year you were born in, so every year when the year changed then you know you are a year older. But certainly no one ever sings to you on that day, and no one even utters a “Happy Birthday” wish.
What I have just described is the case for many children in Rwanda, including much of those in the Home of Innocence. It occurred to us recently that it would be fun to throw a birthday party for the boys, so we decided last month we would celebrate the birthday of all the boys born in December, January, and February. Since so many don’t have a birthdate, and January 1st becomes the default, we were celebrating the birthdays of 10 out of 15 boys. Too many names to put on the cake we ordered from the African Bagel Company!
We got to have this birthday party with members of a mission team connected to us through All God’s Children International, and this team graciously offered to pay for the party as well. We had some balloons left here from a previous team, so we got out chairs and divided everyone, kids & adults alike, into two teams to play “pop the balloon on a chair relay”. The kids really got a charge out of that, we played another relay game, hide and seek, and then came inside for sambosas and juice. Then we got to put candles on the cake & sing Happy Birthday to everyone. We finished up the night by playing a game of “pin the tail on the cow” (donkeys are not common in Rwanda, so I changed the game). If you want to see more photos of the birthday party they are on the Ten Talents International facebook page.
Celestin ready for his turn at putting a "tail" on the cow picture.
Everyone had a great day with lots of laughs and smiles. I am so glad we did this, and for many of these kids I am sure this will be a day that they remember for a long time. Their first birthday party. The first time anyone sang Happy Birthday to them. Their first birthday cake. I look forward to doing this again next month for the kids who were born in March, April, and May.
We have quite a crowd now when we get all our Home of Innocence boys together!
Would you like to come with a team to Rwanda? We encourage you to contact All God’s Children International as they are putting teams together for Rwanda mission trips and have become a great partner organization with the work going on here in Rwanda.
God Bless You,
Lisa
