Most Interesting Day Yet

I am officially writing this after our most “exciting” day so far this trip. After a 3 hour drive to the last feeding center we will visit, we arrived to find a lack of children. The teacher had canceled today of school because they hadn’t gotten the message we would be there. But we got the opportunity to wander around the surrounding villages. This feeding center was by far the poorest of them all. They had two smaller sized buildings, one made of mud and rock. The villages were full of children clothed in clothes literally falling apart and families with so many kids and not enough to feed them. The more I see of these places the more and more I completely admire the pastors who are working in these places. Well, onto the day…on the way home our bus broke down. After twenty minutes a matatu (van they use as public transportation) pulls up. We cram 20, yes 20, people into a van with a limit of 14 for a two hour ride. We then took the ferry back across and met our new driver with a van. The Lord was good to us JYesterday (Wednesday) the girls had an adventure getting our hair done – be ready for a surprise when I get home (or look forward to pictures…haha) And that evening we had dinner with the missionary pastor and Bruce O’Neil, the director of Manna international (they group that helps set up feeding centers). It was a really great evening of hearing how God works. Tuesday we went to another feeding center called Tiwi. It was absolutely incredible. The Pastor started it with him teaching 5 kids in preschool and has blossomed into 8 grades up to our 6th grade equivalent with 230 kids! The facility is really great, and in fact it is where we will be having our youth camp. I had the opportunity to meet several 15 and 16 year olds who will be at camp and I am pretty excited to be able to minister to them and get to know them even more. Monday was a day full of culture. We went to an Akamba (a tribe that has set up this system for wood carving and selling their goods) we also went to an area of stores (tin shacks) for soapstone. Bartering with the shop owners got to be really fun. Sunday half the group went to Duruma (bush land) for church where several of them killed chickens for dinner and were even given a live chicken as a parting gift. We went to church and heard the director of Manna International speak. We also got free time in the afternoon that was much needed. Thank the Lord I am feeling better, and thanks for all your prayers for that. You can keep several things in your prayers – tomorrow we head to an AIDS orphanage and that will be really hard, so just pray that we are sensitive to the needs and affected in a positive way. Also, for camp, it starts on Monday, so this may be my last post. Just pray that the kids are open and that we say the right things.
- Angela