FAMILY! FRIENDS!! FELLOW COUNTRY MEN!! How has it been? I know I know Ive almost been in Africa for a month and your just now hearing from me…… The thing is I haven’t had wifi to post. This honestly has been the best because i have been using my time wisely here! My relationship with the Lord is the strongest it has ever been.
So a couple days into being in Africa we arrived at our ministry location. Our ministry is named Testimony ran by a man named Gadisa. Gadisa who was an orphan himself takes in orphans for orphans and kids in need so every day they come in the morning and eat. Then they eat the rest of their meals at school and on Saturdays, they spend all day with us. So we thought our ministry was going to be church outreach and vacation bible school. but things changed. Let me explain the first couple of days being here Gadisa wanted us to have 2 full days of prayer. we prayed for funding for him to expand his ministry so he could house homeless kids and the elderly. He also had word that some refugees were arriving in Ethiopia and they were setting up camp and he was itching to get us in there so we prayed for that too. We also prayed for land for him.
After these two days of prayer, God answered them. First, there is a woman who is currently funding for him in America and he found out after our days of prayer!!! Amen right?! Second, after many meetings, Gadisa arranged for us to work with the refugees!!! They also gave us a building to take the kids to play with them and teach them some essential like hygiene, computers, and English!
So if you don’t know who refugees are they are people who have been stripped away from their homes because of war and most likely have to live in this camp for years. That being said we had no idea what we were walking into. Our job for the first week was to just love on the kids.
Arriving at the camp we were greeted by literally 200+ kids not even exaggerating and that’s not even all of them. There are only 20 of us…. So we are still trying to find out the most beneficial way to work/teach these kids. Everyone at this camp is Muslim so we are not allowed to mention God or pray for anyone. We just needed to love them the way Jesus would. So one thing you should know about this camp is there is a mix of many social classes. There is the pourest of the poor and the richest of the rich. Right now they are all living about the same way. They only have one pair of clothes and one tin roof over their heads yet there is a lot of division because of social classes. It breaks my heart but I understand why we are there. We have been loving these kids like none other. Whether they are dirty or Squeaky clean. Gadisa said the parents have told him they have never seen a love like this that they sadly don’t even love their kids this much… Some kids have told us they have never felt a love like this…I can tell because boy/girls who are about 10 ask me to hold them all the time because they have never been held before. The older people are so kind and love watching us sing songs with their kids so much that they even try to learn with them! This is honestly the most heartwarming thing I’ve ever done in my life and its gonna be really hard for me to leave. Its definitely has taught me not to get so caught up in materialistic things.
So this week we have just been loving on them but next week we are breaking down into groups and we are gonna have some hygiene days where we give the kids baths and teach them how to wash their face because cataracts is a common thing here for kids. We are also gonna be teaching them some life skills and English! I will update you guys again soon. But just remember no words means good words. I feel so safe here so don’t you worry about me! Hope you guys are doing well and ill be home in almost 2 months! chou!
