Week One

Week one has flown by so fast! So far we've been able to help with a soup kitchen, go to a relocation camp, experience three different church services, visit a local hospital, and my favorite, two orphanages! The week was filled with so many different things but I'll highlight the most memorable parts of the week, and what God shown me.

 Our church services

The team has been split up into two groups of six to go to two different churches throughout the summer for Sunday morning and Wednesday night service. My group will be attending P.S Baptist Church and I'm already in love with the people. There are about 10-15 members of the church not including us makiwas (white people). The church is just one tin wall and a tin roof held up by some wood and with some feed sacks sewn together for two additional walls, but man is it a church. These people come together and praise and worship God with a joy I've never seen before in such a small group and are so hungry for the word! Their Sunday morning service starts at 9:00 with about 1 1/2 hours of worship, followed by a 2 1/2 hour sermon with personal testimonies mixed in. But the crazy part is NO ONE complains. No one gets too tired, too hungry, or too restless for the word of God. They are there to glorify Him, and that is exatly what they do. We also have attended BBC for a youth service on Sunday nights and have partnered with them in most of our ministry. This is a rather large, mulitcultural church, and a rare sight in Africa. Actually, this church would be a rare sight in America too. They exemplify the body of Christ more than I have ever seen in a church. They have an outreach for every possible ministry, and are never lacking in help for them. They reach out to the homeless, the orphans, the widows, the elderly, the sick, youth, families, litterally every category you can think of. But what really amazes me is the attitude that they have while doing it, and the fact that the WHOLE church is involved. I've seen so many people sacrifice their time, money, convenience, and all sorts of things just to reach out to someone. Anyone. They work together effortlessly, and are so willing and ready to help out any ministry that needs them. It's unbelievable and so challenging. I'm very excited to continue to work with them this summer.

 The children.

 Oh. My. Goodness. I'm in love! Anyone surprised? I would love to spend all day every day with these precious kids. For these children to end up in one of these orphanages they have to go through a whole system, similar to ours, where they are first placed with an extended family member if possible, and if not, they go to the community (which is like the extended family here). If that isn't possible, they become available for adoption in general, and then after a certain time they are "institutionalized", or in other words, placed in an orphanage. These children have been turned away multiple times before they get to this point. Some of them are old enough to know it, some of them aren't. But what gets to me, is the joy they find in the simplest of things despite any of their circumstances. All it takes is for a couple of mikiwas to come and tell them a Bible story and spend some time with them and their faces are LIT UP for the rest of day. They trusted us almost immediately. They have faith that we're going to come back and see them, that when they jump into our arms, we'll catch them. And they just met us. Such a reminder to have childlike faith.