Hope you all are doing well!!!! I have had some great experiences this past week. I did Home based care visits and orphan and vulnerable children. With home based care we visited individuals who had AIDS and assessed their condition and if they had enough food. Before we assessed everything they sat down with us and told us their entire story. How they contracted AIDS, who else is their family has been affected, and how they are even treated in the community because they have AIDS. It was very emotional listening to all this. For the orphan visits we took time to go to these children's houses and make sure that they were receiving adequate care. When an orphan gets placed in a home it puts a severe financial strain on the house. We make sure there are mosquito nets are in place, and there is a toilet, and a good water supply. This was very humbling for me as a "wealthy" white person to sit there and ask them all these questions. Some of the girls really enjoyed these I preferred the home based care instead because I felt like they were more willing to share and it was more of a ministry opportunity to just sit and pray and encourage. With both of these days we took a good amount of food to each of the homes we went to. We did 4 the first day and 2 homes the second. Here is a picture of one of the homes receiving the food with one of the leaders who took us out. It was an experience that I will definitely remember.
With starting to wrap everything up we have started our long long long list of good bye parties and thank yous. There are two girls who work in the guest house where we stay and they are like sisters to all of us. I have been so encouraged with them and have enjoyed their hugs, laughs, and company so much A group of us invited them over for a movie night so this a picture from that.
For the big thank you parties we divided into groups. My group was in charge of saying thank you to the entire World Hope International Zambia staff. The night before we baked 92 cinnamon scones. The first batch was a little salty =) but we got the rest of them down. We served tea, coffee, scones, mango jelly (which is my favorite kind of jelly), and chocolate twirlers to put our American spin on it. They really enjoyed it and we did not have one scone left. Part of that was though the younger guys decided to eat 9 each. Here is a picture of our group serving the staff after morning devotions.
I guess we started a trend. After we said thank you to the staff they decided to throw us a surprise party one afternoon. We had popcorn and cake and they just went around the room and each of them said their favorite memory or how we made an impression on them. This was true Zambian style since they each took time. It was a really good time filled with laughter and tears but very encouraging. Here is a picture before we all played volleyball =) I am getting pretty good at volleyball it is so fun!
The orphanage that I have been going to is run by Germans. There are two German girls that live at each of the three oprhanages. We invited them over to play dutch blitz. It was a lot of fun. I have gotten pretty close to Sara who I am sitting next to in this picture. I love dutch blitz so it was such a blessing and a great time!
So as you can see we have a lot going on - So I still have a lot of papers. Hopefully my 10 page research paper will be done by tonight - that is the plan =) Continue to pray for all of us as we begin to try and leave this amazing place that we love. Last night we had a foot washing service just to stop and serve each other. With us serving everyone else it was time to serve each other. It was an emotional but powerful time of prayer, worship, and reflection. We leave the guest house here Thursday and we will go to Livingstone to visit Victoria Falls and have a Safari and different things like that to end the trip kind of on a touristy note. We will be there Thursday through Sunday and then our Plane leaves on Monday at 1 PM which is 6 AM your time. So one week from tomorrow. Continue to pray for our last week as we have a lot more good byes to say and a lot more tears to come but we know that God has been so faithful in this season in our lives and we are so grateful for the time that we had.
love
janna
No comments:
Post a Comment