If I sat down and wrote about every person who has made an impact on my life in the last 6 months…there would be at least 100 blogs! I wish I could bring them all home and have each of you meet them and for you to understand how amazing all these people are and how much they love God! I know my faith has grown and has been strengthen by all of these people! It amazes me how our contacts open up their hearts, their homes and their families for a month and never really know who we are or what we can do!
As most of you know, my heart is for kids! I can’t get enough of them and they seem to be drawn to me. I have fallen in love with kids in every country we have been and I wish I could take them all with me. And of course Africa wasn’t any different. It’s like God knows that I get energized by being around kids and He makes sure that I have a chance to love and be loved on my children.
Yet again, God blessed me and my team with a group of kiddos that stole our hearts and I would like to introduce you to them! This became my world last month and I want to share that part of my heart with you all!
PASCAL
This adorable little guy I meet my first weekend in Morogoro! He is about 8 or 9 and he was on our church’s praise team! I first noticed him because he was the youngest on the worship team and he was dancing and worshipping God with all his heart. You don’t really see that in the States….kids are usually seen and not heard! They aren’t allowed to be involved in ministries where ‘they could be in the way!’
A friendship grew immediately. He has the biggest smile, I have ever seen! We made eye contact and started making funny faces at each other! I would wink at him and he would try to wink back! He didn’t speak English so we really couldn’t ‘talk’ to each other but we did know how to laugh!
He was a typically 8-9 year old boy but He loves Jesus so much and worshipped his Heavenly Father with every ounce that he had. I learned a lot by just watching how he worshipped..and seeing his child-like faith!
DEVAN AND MAGGIE
I want everyone first to know that I tried VERY HARD to think of every way of how I was going to get these two kids home! Devan is around 4 years old and Maggie is around a year and a half! They are brother and sister and their mom was one of the amazing women who cooked our meals every day for us! I met Devan first and it was love at first sight! He was so happy and we had a fun session of taking pictures and videos together! He loved taking pictures and looking at them! He smile and laugh are contagious. Maggie was a little shy at first ad stayed in the shadows whenever the white people would come around! She was always looking at us but never coming close. The last week and a half, she finally realized that we weren’t scary and started coming around.
Every day Maggie and Devan would see me and would literally run to give me a hug at every meal! It was my favorite time of the day! Where we sat for lunch, they would come and sit on me. Devan would love to take my camera and he knew that he had to be very careful. He would just snap pictures and we would look at them and we would just be a ball of laughter! Maggie would sit on my lap and about 70% of the time would fall asleep. She was so good at cuddling.
We didn’t speak the same language, but it really didn’t matter! They would try to tell me a story and I would try to talk to them and it didn’t matter if we didn’t understand each other…we just wanted to be around each other!
ANNA AND ALEX
These cute kiddos were our pastor’s grandkids. Alex is almost 3 years old and Anna is 2 and a half. We meet them right away and they became attached just as quickly.
The best way to describe Anna is to think of the commercial for Sour Patches. One minute she is mean and bossy and a second later she is sweet and wants to cuddle! She knew what she wanted and liked being in charge! But when she wanted to be she was a sweetheart! She was the first out of all the kids to approach us and make friends with my team.
The best way to describe Alex is to think of a little old man. He was cool and calm and just loved to sit somewhere and watch people! He became very close to one of my teammates and he put ALL of his trust into him! You couldn’t help buy melt around Alex
ELIJAH
Ok so first, I know he isn’t a kid but this young man became a huge part of our month that I couldn’t leave him out! Elijah was our pastor’s son…so he became out translator, our main contact, our roommate, and our friend! We spent almost every minute with this guy and he became our teammate!
Elijah is 23 years old and the oldest male in his family! He helps his dad run the church and is usually the front man during every service and bible study. God has blessed him with the gift of music and with a fire that ignites every person around him with the love of God. He has a passion for the lost and wants everything his does to be glorifying to God. I loved to watch him preach and talk to the student! You couldn’t help get excited for sharing the gospel when you were around him.
He loves to joke and have fun. He wanted to share life with us. At night he would hang out with us and just be with us. He was interested in our lives back at home and wanted to know what we were doing before the race, why we came on the race and what we were going to be doing after! He loved sharing how God was working in his life and would share his passions and dreams! He was full of love and gave all the credit to God.
I can honestly say that he became a brother to me. I know God is going to use him to change Morogoro, Tanzania and all of Africa!! The world could use more Elijahs!!!
