Well, since the last time I’ve blogged we’ve experienced our first Christmas away from home in Israel, planted a church in Eldoret, Kenya, and now we’re in Soroti, Uganda.
This is a short month, but already I’m so in love with it. We’re doing a lot of visiting with families and people who live around the church we’re helping with, and I somehow always find my way to the kids. I’ve had the opportunity to work more with kids within the last week than I have the entire race and I’m SO happy about it. This is just what I’ve been waiting for. The kids here are adorable. Whenever you’re around they yell, “mzungo (“white person”) how are you?” in their cute little African accents, and run up to you with their hand out ready to shake yours. I love being able to play games with them and teach them English in ways like having them repeat every word I say and drawing pictures in the dirt with a stick. 🙂
On Saturday we spent the afternoon working with 200 Compassion International sponsored children. It was a great day and definitely a learning experience since I know that none of us have ever worked with that many non-English speaking kids before. We sang songs with them, put on an improved skit of David and Goliath and taught them duck, duck, goose, which surprisingly kept them entertained for at least 30 minutes. I loved working with Compassion International children because it made the organization seem much more legit to me. I’m always skeptical when I see a commercial about sending a certain amount of money to an organization and trusting them to get the money where you believe it’s going. After talking to our pastor about Compassion and what they do, I’m definitely a believer in the organization. It’s legit and they do so much for the kids here whose families can’t afford to give them the kind of life they deserve. A sponsership gives them an education and a transformed life with so much opportunity that they otherwise would never have. Compassion International sponsors kids until they are 23, which gives them the chance to gain a higher education and thanks to that a career. I keep thinking that it would be amazing to meet a child here who needs sponsored and sponsor them when I get home. We’ll see how that goes. 🙂
In other news, our team had a great time celebrating Valentine’s Day-sharing past Valentine’s Day disaster and success stories, watching a chick flick and decorating the house with heart shapes. 🙂 The boys were great sports about it. haha And, I’ll celebrate my first birthday away from home on Friday. I’m not sure what we’ll do, since there isn’t too much to do here in this little town, but I’m sure it will be a birthday I’ll never forget! 🙂
That’s all the news here. I appreciate the support and prayers from everybody at home more than I can say! 🙂
