We are now two weeks into
our trip and I can't believe how much we have already been able to
accomplish! We have painted the school house, rearranged the kid's
room, made a new study room as well as a sewing room! We have had the
opportunity to meet many new friends and without fail are invited
over to their homes for a unique meal. It is amazing the hospitality
these people have shown us! I love being here and building new
friendships!
In my opinion the best
part of being here so far is being able to love on these beautiful
children. We get to play soccer with them, give them as many hugs as
possible, tell them Bible stories, let them play with our hair, color
with them for hours, and so many other fun things! I have loved to
get to know them and each of their unique personalities! Christina
and I have now gotten countless lessons in Swahili from the children.
At times, we feel like they are our little children! It definitely
has been AWESOME!
We have made friends with
our bodyguard (Griffin) and his friend Pastor Tony. It has been a
blast hanging out with them and meeting their families! Pastor Tony
has a church out in a very remote area called Kituni. There he has a
feeding program for about 120 children that are mostly orphaned
children. They stood in line patiently to get some rice and beans
and the saddest part of it all is that they were only getting ONE
meal on Monday's, Wednesday's, and Friday's! That means they were
getting only THREE meals a WEEK! Well after seeing that Vic (the man
who began the orphanage that we are at) decided that his organization
could pull together some money and pay for 2 more days a week! Now
those children are getting five meals total a week! One of the days,
we got the opportunity to go and help with feeding the children and
we were able to sit and sing with the kids (they didn't know English
very well) and they ended up braiding all of our hair! It was a
mind blowing and emotionally draining day. I'm excited to go back
there again and show the Jesus film and love on those kids!
In the upcoming weeks a
team from America is coming and helping here, we will be heading to
Uganda for a few days, going to Kitale, visiting new churches,
showing the Heaven is for Real film, and lots of fun activities with
the kids.
This is just a short
update as I am still trying to gather all of my thoughts on all I
have seen and all that I'm learning! I truly appreciate your prayers
and encouragement! I will try to continue to update my blog in the
coming weeks!
“Serving God is not a
matter of location, but a matter of obedience” -Nik Ripken-