May 17, 2007
Yesterday afternoon we arrived in Morrumbala to the shouts and cries of over 50 running children. I felt like a celebrity. All 22 of us in the flatbed gazed upon a horde of children sprinting alongside and behind our truck. When we parked in front of Iris Ministries, some of us hopped out to greet the kids. Myself, feeling a bit overwhelmed with the reception, stayed up on the truck to take it all in and “process”.
And then the children were led in a song of welcome by their house “mama”, complete with harmonies. If that weren’t enough, when they finished, they outsretched their little hands and began to pray for us in unison. These kids, none older than 13, started covering us in prayer. It was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever witnessed. It was as if God whispered in my ear, “this is how much I love you”. To experience a child’s, or 50 children’s faith is to see a picture of how God longs for us to be with Him. To go back to basics. To sit at His feet (or at the foot of a flatbed truck), worship Him, thank Him, and let Him cover us with His love and protection. That moment will forever be engrained in my memory. When tears of joy well up from a humbled heart, out pours a love you never knew you had. Is this a sign of brokeness? I don’t know, and I doubt it. It still seems selfish, but I know my heart does cry out for these 58 disadvantaged children… all fatherless.
And Nessa will be joining them 2 days this week. We’ll be doing food distribution the other 2 days. We took that news a little hard last night (the other teams are doing food outreach 3 times, to our 2 times), since we ultimately thought that was the reason we were coming to Morrumbala. We’ve also heard of an opportunity to go with Herbert (our Iris contact here in Morrumbala) to another outpost 12 hours away. A small group will go back to Dondo then leave for Teke… another 12 hour drive. Then when finished, that group will drive the 12 hours back to Dondo to finaly leave to come back for debrief in Swazi. I’d actually like to do this trip and I’m ready for the travel. I’m kind of looking forward to the adventure, if I get picked to go.
(On a side note: no one actually went to Teke, we all stayed in Morrumbala the full 2 weeks, and all teams ended up doing the same amount of food outreaches. God knew what was going to take place the whole time, we jsut have to be willing to drop all of our expectations, and allow God to come through every time.)
