Lets just start this out by saying I HATE painting,
Ok maybe HATE is a strong word…
I really, really… hmm what’s the word… HATE… no not that one… Really, strongly dislike…
Yea, I really, strongly dislike painting.
So there’s that, now we can move on.
We left this morning for Wilmar township planning to spend the first half of the day at Penguins Creche (thats preschool for those of us who don’t speak Africaans) with Bloumie and her 18 kids. Normally she has 55 but since it is winter break most of ker kids stay home with their older siblings who are on break from school.
But I digress…
We arrived, greeted by 19 smiling faces, the four of us girls started playing with the kids and prepping the paint (yea I had to paint. Sad face) while the two guys left to go to the hardware store. The reason they had to go to the store was because the roof was leaking…
no leaking is the wrong word…
the roof had a hole in it about 5 feet long and about 4 inches wide…
so no the roof didnt leak, it was just missing. Anyways…
Not only was the roof missing, we only had 3 colors of paint and Bloumie wanted as many “bright, fun” colors as possible. We didn’t this 3 was as many as possible, so we got some more. When the guys got back, the painting and patching began. It took us about 3 hours to patch the roof and paint some of the walls with paint brushes.
The reason I told you this story is because of Bloumie’s reaction. She was overjoyed, and when I say overjoyed I mean she couldn’t find the words to express her gratitude. We couldn’t promise that the patch would hold or prevent leaking and we didn’t even come close to finishing the paint, but she was so incredably grateful. Just the little that we could do for her made her so happy. She told us that usually on saturdays she lays in bed all day (which is totally understandable when you have 55 children under the age of 5, all day, 5 days a week), but tomorrow she will be getting up to finish all the painting. The idea that just starting the painting could inspire her was amazing to me, it made me realize that we are just the beginning. We are just the beginning of the painting. we are just the beginning of the roof patchers, and we are just the beginning of one person hearing and accepting the love of Christ.
What can you begin?