Spaghetti Night.

When I was a little kid, we ate A LOT of Italian food. Mostly because my dad's mom is an amazing cook and caterer, and she makes the best homemade meatballs known to man. So naturally, my family adopted this tradition of eating spaghetti and meatballs about once a week.

Now, lets do a little math. Children + red sauce + little hand-mouth coordination = mess. Simple, right? Well, my mother felt like the solution to this little equation was putting my brother and I outside on the deck-patio we owned while we ate our sketti. Side note: these noodle nights were half-naked. My brother and I until the age of appropriate age of 3 would eat this meal in our backyard in only our skivvies. Yep. This kept the house clean and our bellies full.

So, I found it highly ironic that my first night in Africa was spaghetti night. The INFAMOUS spaghetti night.

Allyssa and I arrived at Open Arms around 3pm South Africa time, right after "La-La" or nap time. This is the (second) craziest hour of the day for the 36 sweet, precious kids we fell in love with and gave our hearts too. I say that with the utmost love, but yes, this hour was CRAZY.

We soon took on our new names of 'Auntie Allyssa' and 'Auntie Lauren' and the kids climbed and jumped on us. Literally, every limb of my body was occupied with a kid! It was so overwhelming, of course, especially after the 48 hours of flying we did to get to our new home. But it was such a blessing, nonetheless, that we were finally there, able to put these kids before us, and serve them with all the love in our hearts.

Before we knew it, playtime was over, and dinner time had begun. Spaghetti. Red Sauce. Gird your loins.

Pasta was everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. The Mamas or cooks did not cut up the long noodles and the kids were given spoons to eat the spaghetti with. This combination is... well, deadly. So when Allyssa and I sat down to eat with them on the floor, our faces, hair, clothes, and own bowls were targets with giant meatball bulls-eyes for pasta. Before we knew it, we were covered in red gravy.

Sounds like the world should adopt The Schultzs' naked spaghetti night.

Now, after dinner, the REAL (first) crazy hour begins. The kids run everywhere! The younger ones cry, and say 'pick me up!'. And when you do, its only a matter of seconds before another one asks to be picked up too. So there we were covered in sauce, arms full of kids, crying babies filling the room with their melodies, and we look over, and one of the little ones is jumping out the window of the orphanage. No bueno.

I will never forget that first night in Africa. It was single-handedly the most stressful, crazy blur of my life... hands down. I can vividly remember journaling that night and writing about how scared I was. How I was ready to go home and give up. I desperately missed Johnny. I missed my friends, and I missed the normalness of my life back in America. I couldn't stop crying. Thank the LORD for Allyssa. She was my rock.

But as time went on, and as I hope you will see as I write more about my trip, my heart was changed. I realized so many important lessons in life have to be learned the hard way. Sometimes you have to open up your heart and dig deep into the things you are most afraid of; and as some of you may now, the change that is taking place is seemingly tangible. You can almost taste it, smell it, and you can definitely feel it. Its as if all of the negative doubts you have about yourself are forcing their way out, scratching their way up from the pits of your soul, until you finally come to a realization that you can overcome the obstacles you face.

For me, the obstacle was 5 weeks South Africa.

Let me just tell you, I overcame the hardships, the doubt, the fear.

But South Africa and those 36 adorable children did win one thing: My heart.

Cliche? Maybe. True? Yes.

South Africa 2010. Oh yea baby.