1st Day of the Feeding Programby Mel Trollman | December 30, 2014 4:37 AM
Good Shepherd Orphanage is very involved in taking care of not only the children who live there, but the children in the community as well. Each day they open up their gates and provide a hot meal for the kids from the impoverished neighborhood. All they need to do is show up with a spoon.
We were asked to serve the food to the children at the program. The only problem was the food was over an hour late! We went into to the pavilion where the kids waited for their food in an attempt to distract them and just spend time with them. Needless to say an hour later of waiting, they were hungry, restless, and anxious. Put those all together in a high-energy group of children from a less-structured, impoverished area, and you basically have the definition of what it means to bounce off the wall.
It was tricky spending time with the children in an enclosed, warm area. It got loud and the children all wanted to play with us. We were outnumbered! We didn't have enough limbs for the arm wrestling required, and couldn't switch off holding them fast enough. But Deb and a few other musical members of our group thought of the perfect idea to calm the wild kiddos. They started to sing. Talk about charming snakes! As much as hungry children could be calm and quiet, they sat there listening to the beautiful notes lingering in the air. It was very cool. And, well, right after that the food finally came! We served the meal and the children went home with full bellies for the night.