Cyprus, The island of Aphrodite... or is that Cats?

So onward we've gone to the Mediterranean Sea. After a long flight from Nigeria and an even longer layover in Dubai (very nice airport plus Emirates gave us food vouchers since our layover was so long) we finally arrived in Larnaca, Cyprus (left at 9:30am and arrived at 10:15am the next morning!)  One of the brothers from the church, Charlie, came with his wife to pick us up.  We chatted all the way to Limassol (Lemosos to Greeks) where we would be staying for the next week with the Mathias family: Dylan, Ann and Keable.  Dylan leads the Limassol Church of Christ.  They welcomed us into their home, offered us their food and gave us their bed to sleep in. A truly kind and welcoming family. We crashed for a few hours (I had no sleep since we left Nigeria the day before) and then took off to have dinner with Charlie and his family at a sea food restaurant in the mall.  Amazing how many American food chains have come to Cyprus - Taco Bell, KFC, McDonalds, TGI Fridays, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, BK...list is endless (of course Starbucks is all over too).

With Charlie, Isis, Christos and Ioanna

Cyprus is an interesting country.  Most of the people on the island are natives, called Cypriots. They have a very strong Greek culture. Language, food, family life, and religion are all pretty much Greek.  Most Cypriots are part of the Greek Orthodox Church.  There is a second group on the north side of the island. These are Turkish people.  Cyprus has a colorful past. Throughout history many civilizations and empires passed through the island conquering it and at later dates relinquishing control. Currently Cyprus has it's own government that according to the international community is in control of the entire island.  Though there is some tension in the north side because Turkey invaded the island back in the 60's and have been militarily occupying the north side of the island ever since.  There aren't any military conflicts today though there is still tension in the air.  Another interesting fact about Cyprus... cats are everywhere!  Everywhere we went, almost guaranteed, and actually kind of creepy, there were cats. (There's some speculation that the earliest cat fossils are found in Cyprus.)

Sculpture Park in Limassol

Limmasol

For our stay we wanted to hang out with the disciples and see a few of the sites.  Our second day there we went to a midweek service where I was able to share with the group the things Muthoni and I have learned on our RTW Trip. They'd been following the blog and were really excited to have us with them.  They were meeting in a new location so I got the honor of being the first speaker at this spot.

The rest of the week we hung out in town, walking along the Mediterranean seaside, the street markets and seeing some of the historic sites of the city.  Limassol is a quiet city, especially so now that it's been hit pretty badly by the recession.  Many shops are closed and abandoned in the heart of the retail district. During the summer months lots of tourists, most of whom are from the UK, visit the island. The beach was okay, though the sand wasn't very soft and the temperature was pretty cold.  We toured the Limassol castle which is a fort that was built next to the port a very long time ago (no one knows when).  It was later rebuilt by the Turks in the 16th century.  It is now a museum and contains pottery and other artifacts from as early as the 3rd century AD to as recently as the 19th century. They didn't let us take any pictures inside :(

Limassol town architecture

Inside the Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Ayia Napa, Limassol

A lot of old abandoned buildings

Typical restored buildings (bottom part) in Limassol

One evening we went for a drive into the mountains to visit one traditional Cypriot village known as Omodos. A lot of people have moved out of the small villages since it's hard to generate income. Omodos itself is a wine producing village.  We got to see some traditional winepresses, an old Greek Orthodox church which sits at the center of the village and an old monastery next to the church that is no longer in use. 

More modern house in Omodos

Cyprus has a dry climate, though in summer it can get very humid. They grow a lot of citrus fruit, especially lemons and tangerines, grapes, nuts, olives, avocados, legumes and potatoes. Limestone rock is predominant in the Cyprus landscape (the whitish areas you see in the picture below). 

Cypriot countryside

The mountains in Cyprus get snow during the winter months. They are less than 2,000 meters above sea level.

On Saturday we took a road trip to the west side of the island to a city called Pafos.  (For you biblical scholars this is the same city that the Apostle Paul visited in Acts 13 where he spoke to Sergius Paulus and also cursed Bar-Jesus with blindness).  On our way there we stopped at a beach called the Rock of Aphrodite.  Aphrodite is the Greek god of love and it is claimed that she was born in Cyprus at this particular beach.  The scenery was quite beautiful.  Supposedly if you swim around one of these rocks 3 times, you will find the love of your life. 

Tunnel to Aphrodite Rock

No need for me to swim around the rock. I have found the love of my life.

Keable and his friend Nicholas

We also got to see a few ruins of the North Gate of Paleopafos dated around 498 BC.  The city was once a great religious center. The city was sieged by Persians and tunnels dug during the siege can still be seen. Around 300 BC, this city was moved to a location closer to the harbor and named New Pafos. 

Remains of the wall.

Muthoni is standing on at least 2,500 year old stones.

Tunnels built to break siege walls set up by Persians

Arriving in Pafos we had a picnic on the beach and then went off to see the historical sights. The entire town of Pafos has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  There is one main archaeological site that has the ruins of Sergius Paulus' house (from 1st century AD).  There were also other historical places throughout the city. One interesting place was an area within the Panagia Chrysopalitissa Church. In the churches compound there is a pillar known as St. Paul's pillar.  So according to tradition Paul was flogged here by Sergius Paulus before he converted to Christianity.  We also saw a fort built in the Byzantine period to protect the harbor.  When the British colonized Cyprus, they used the fort as prison cells.

Faros Beach where we had our picnic

One of the many amazing colorful mosaics that have been preserved since Roman times.

Friends in Cyprus

Turkish Baths

 Pillar in the middle of pic is the one Saint Paul was supposedly flogged on.

Our last days in Limassol we pretty much chilled until the day we left. We had dinner with another family for our last night in Limassol, Oleg and Raisa Gomenyuk. Such a great time with our brothers and sisters in Cyprus. We're so grateful to Dylan and Ann for sharing their home and their lives with us.  Truly a great memory.

On the day before we left Cyprus, we stayed in Larnaca so that we could see some of the history there. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate so we didn't get to see much.

Church of Saint Lazarus in Larnaca

The remains of Lazarus were supposedly found here in 890AD in a sarcophagus and bore a description saying “Lazarus the four day dead and friend of Christ”. A church was soon after built that functioned first as a monastery but is now used by the Greek Orthodox Church for their services.

The supposed tomb of Saint Lazarus

Next up... Greece.

What do you have for me o!?

Hello from Nigeria, my bradas and sistas o!

Unfortunately Nigeria has a lot of stereotypes associated with it due to corruption in the country and therefore not a very good rep.  Many people asked me why we were going to Nigeria.  Well, one of my best friends, Temi Adelore, lives there and since we were coming through Africa, we had to stop by to see her. 

Our flight from Kenya to Lagos was delayed by an hour and a half but the pilot flew faster (really) and so we arrived at the scheduled time.  Going through immigration and customs was no problem so we were happy that we would make it to our connecting flight going to Abuja.  We were surprised to find that the international airport and domestic airport are not one and the same.  We had to get a taxi to go from one to the other (a 10 minute drive).  When we arrived at the Lagos domestic airport, we were bombarded by guys offering to take our bags, asking us if we had tickets yet, and many other questions.  Lol! If I didn't have a ticket, were they going to sell me a ticket outside? 

When we walked into the airport, Vernon's immediate response was "This feels more like a bus station than an airplane terminal." That's pretty much when things went down hill.  We checked into our flight two hours early to make sure we didn't miss it, went through security and headed to the waiting area.  The room was packed with people and not many seats were available. We scouted the room and finally found a seat. Then we waited and waited... and waited with hundreds of other people. Our flight time came and went.  The announcements over the PA system were inaudible so we had no idea what was going on and there was no one to ask.  We were kept busy watching the merchants walking around trying to sell books, phone cards, or dvds to anyone who would pay them attention.  Finally I get tired of sitting and walk outside.  Good thing because I overheard some people talking about the reason for the delay.  No more jet fuel at the domestic airport! "What? Okay, I hope they find some soon." Three hours later we finally get called to board so we catch the shuttle to the plane on the tarmac.  At the plane all the passengers lined up for another security screen. Vernon gets pulled aside because he has some plates in a bag. They said, "You can't bring this on board, we're taking this." Then, they ask "What do you have for me?"  "Excuse me?" Vernon asks. "What do you have for me? Do you have something for me so I can get some lunch?"  Yeah, right there, the guy basically asked for a bribe so we can take the plates on the plane. After seeing he was getting nowhere with his request he let Vernon go with the plates.  The checked luggage was brought and all passengers were asked to identify their luggage. I find my bag, but Vernon's is nowhere to be seen. Drama begins.  I tell all the baggage handlers that I'm missing a bag.  They brought a cart and rushed me to the terminal to look for it.  Nothing there.  I literally run from the terminal to three other planes on the tarmac that are being boarded looking for our bag.  No sign of it anywhere.  At this point, I'm getting a "little" frustrated.  With my hands on my hips I start demanding that our bag be found otherwise we would not leave (by this everyone had boarded the plane and they were waiting for us). I go to the luggage tug that was putting all the bags on the plane and pull out my bag to show how serious I was.  I personally thought that our lost bag was a deliberate attempt to get some more money out of us (however, we later find out that this wasn't so but that the bag was honestly misplaced).   Vernon convinces me that we should leave with the flight.  By this time, the air hostess had come outside and said that they can't wait any longer and that they were closing the door. We run up the passenger stairs trusting that God would help us get our bag back.

We arrived in Abuja in the evening and were so glad to see Temi and our new friend Aki waiting for us.  Wow, what a day! We started at 4:30 am in Nairobi, Kenya and ended the day at around midnight in Nigeria.

On Saturday we took off with Temi, her sister Teju and few of Temi's friends on a road trip to the neighboring state, Niger, to sight see and enjoy the water at Guarara Falls.  On the way we enjoyed some nice scenery. Large rock formations along side the road and vast flat lands stretched out to the horizon.  The drive took about 4 hours and when we got to the falls, we just chilled for hours.  It was super hot (at least 35 deg C). 

Zuma Rock

Gurara River - river was far from full.

The rocks underneath were slippery - joint effort.

 

Guarara waterfalls

Temi and I.

The gang.

On the way back we stopped by the airport because we got word that Vernon's bag arrived! Praise the Lord!

Sunday we got to see our brothers and sisters at the International Church of Christ Abuja. We really enjoyed worshiping with them and had plenty of fellowship afterwards.  After that we went on a sight seeing tour of Abuja.  Abuja is the capital city of Nigeria. Built about 21 years ago as the country moved the capital from Lagos.  The city was pretty quiet, the streets were well made, and the architecture is nice.  After picking up some To Go Chinese food, we back to Temi's for the evening.

Mosque in Abuja

Streets of Abuja

Though the trip was short, it was such a blessing to spend time with Temi. 

Off to the Mediterranean.

Friends, Family and my desire to see China

Vernon playing tourist in Nairobi

For the rest of our 2 weeks in Nairobi, I was working on getting my visas while Vernon tugged along with me and played tourist.   The first embassy I went to was China.   They rejected my application claiming that I was applying for the visa too early (the application says that I can apply for a 6 month visa which would cover the time I would be there. When I pointed this out, I was conveniently told that they no longer issue 6 month visas).   I decided to apply for a passport renewal since I only had 3 pages left (quite a colorful passport I have!).   This process was pretty stressful to say the least, because I was racing against time.   However, God blessed me to get a new passport in the nick of time.   With the new passport I went back to the China embassy and this time they claimed that my application was incomplete because I did not have a detailed travel plan describing all that I would be doing in China.  Gracious! I refuse to give up.   Next, I went to the Cyprus High Commission which had told me that getting a visa takes 15 days.   I went there by faith because I only had 5 days before we left Kenya.   More blessings, Cyprus issued my visa not in 15 days but in 1 day.   With 4 days left to go I went to the Turkish embassy.   All my paperwork was in order - I made sure of this after the Chinese fiasco.   However, they told me that my passport and visa wouldn’t be ready until Friday afternoon.   Problem is, we were leaving on Friday morning.   OK.  So now I’m thinking, we have to cancel our trip to turkey.   What a bummer!   I’ve dreamt of going to turkey for a while and had my list of things I wanted to do not to mention some shopping.  Oh well.  Check this out.  Just before I walked out of the embassy office, the lady tells me that because I’ll be coming from a Schengen State (EU), I can get my visa at the airport if I fly into turkey on Turkish Airlines.   What?? There’s hope for Turkey.   Yeah!!.   So now our trip can proceed – Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and onwards.   I’ll have to tackle China and Japan some other way.

The Nairobi City Market - Meat, vegetables, trinkets, souvenirs etc., can all be found here.

The city may not seem busy but it is buzzing.

As I waited for visa developments, we hung out with my sister and the lovely kids, my cousin and friends.  Vernon got a chance to meet some of the friends I went to high school with.  They are a colorful, lovely bunch.  We are fortunate that the entire class has been able to keep in touch. 


Hanging out with Cera, Naya (not shown) and Phoebe.

 

My lovely nieces Caile and Nav.

Hanging out with my sis, Shile and the kids at the mall.

At a coffee shop with my cousin, Winnie. We hang out till late at night.  Nairobi has millions of people so even at 9:30 pm when we were heading out we still had to maneuver through the people traffic.

We met for High Tea with hats and crumpets - Buckingham Palace style!

At the Tea

The lovely ladies and lovelier kids.

Joan didn't make it to Tea so we had our own hang time.

On the Wednesday before we left Kenya, Vernon, my mom and I travelled to Meru to visit my grandmother (my mother’s mom).   Meru is about 4 hours from Nairobi and is close to the Mt. Kenya National Park.   We left at 6 am on public transportation.   The ride to Meru so early in the morning was really nice.   The road passes through Thika town which has a huge pineapple plantation close to the highway.   It also passes Mwea town which is one of the three main rice producing areas in Kenya.   There were lots of rice paddies extending for miles and miles.  After passing these towns the terrain is very hilly and green with lots of Tea farms and tall trees lining the road.   We got to my grandmother’s farm hungry.  

On the road to cucu's (grandmother)

Me, grandmother (Mama Sabera) and my mom



Mama Sabera made Vernon a special porriage, just for him.



My uncle in the farm. They just finished harvesting wheat.





My grandmother on the cell! Come on!

Tea Farms.

She was so happy to see us.   Especially Vernon and I.   I haven’t seen my grandmother in at least 15 years and she obviously had never met Vernon, who in our culture is her “husband”.   A lot of great food was prepared for us.   We ate and talked with my uncles and aunt who were also there.   It was nice to see my grandmother still strong and feisty in her late eighties.   Vernon and I were given a tour of the farm and enjoyed the beautiful Meru landscape.   By the time we headed back to Nairobi, it was late, traffic had set in, we had a lot of luggage (we were sent back with mangoes, maize, beans and lentils) and the drive was therefore not as comfortable.   Either way, I was so happy to have seen my grandmother after many years and happy that she met Vernon.

 After a good night's rest we head out for Abuja, Nigeria. 

Karibu Sana Kenya

Sorry we've been so quiet. It's been almost a month since we've blogged. Nairobi was quite busy for us - not at all a vacation.  We landed on February 1st. I was given a 90 day visa, Praise the Lord. This was my third time to Kenya, though the first ever in HOT February. This is home for Muthoni so we stayed the whole month.

The first two weeks we volunteered in a children’s home located just outside of Nairobi in a town called Ngong.   The home is called Saint Paul Children’s Care Center.   We visited the home in 2009 for just a day and found it to be a place where we could serve and so we planned to spend a good bit of time with them.  We joined Jayne and her staff as they worked to bring these kids encouragement and preparation for their lives ahead.   

The home takes in kids from rather rough situations (orphaned, abandoned, physically or sexually abused, malnourished, or other irresponsible parental behavior).   These kids range from new born to 17 year olds.  Jayne takes them in and provides counseling to them.   The home is Christian based so the kids are fed not only physical food but also spiritual.   They have a daily routine that provides consistency and learning while at the home.   

Also connected with the home is a school called Shalom Academy (a 15 minute walk up the road).  All the primary school aged kids at the home are students at this school.   Here each child is matched in the grade level that is best for them as many of them have grown up without any formal education.   This school takes them from Elementary trough Middle school (high school students go to a high school in the area).   In the Kenyan Education System they are taught English, Swahili, Math, Science, Social Studies, and at this school they have a class called Christian Religious Education (CRE) (In most Kenyan schools they have an option for Muslims and Hindus). 

The first day we arrived at the home we got ourselves situated in our room and visited the school.  When at the school we got to meet many of the kids for the first time and we walked the younger elementary kids back to the home.   After the kids had taken baths we went out to the yard and played.   I played football with the boys (soccer to us Americans) and Muthoni played with the little ones.   (Something about playing crosses all borders and language barriers, the kids connect with you pretty quickly.)  We played for about an hour, teams of 3 on a short field with a small ball. 

Vernon attempting to play with some of the boys

Then the kids were called for 6pm prayers where they sing and pray.  After that the kids went on to do homework.   Muthoni and I went back to our quarters and spent the rest of the evening with Jayne and her husband’s (Andreas) sister and brother-in-law.  Jayne’s husband is German and so are the in-laws so we got to practice more German (or I got to be the interpreter…oh boy).

The next day after breakfast Muthoni needed to go to the city (Nairobi) to submit her documents so she could get a visa for the UK.  While Muthoni was in Nairobi I spent the whole day at the school. 

Front gate of the school



Classrooms



Playing Field

 I arrived a bit late because I set our alarm clock for 7pm instead of 7am.  I got there as the kids were in their morning session.   I talk to the Head Master of the school, Eric, and he gave me a class to teach, Standard 4 English.   (Wow, am I really doing this? I’m teaching students English, in Kenya.)  So yeah, I’ve prayed quite a bit and started to feel pretty good doing it.  Eric’s assistant gave me a text book, took me to the class, handed me some chalk and introduced me as the English teacher from America.  I introduced myself and class got started.   In this class I had 15 students.   All of them were pretty well mannered and ready to learn.  I taught them about opposites and how to make words and sentences singular or plural.   I gave them an in class assignment and then sent them to their break (What I didn’t know was that each subject was to last only 35 minutes.  I heard bells ringing outside but didn’t know that meant that I was supposed to change subjects or go to a different class to teach English.  I kept those kids there through the first break and two other periods teaching them English.  Oops.  Well at the break I walked down to the teachers’ lounge and told Eric how class went.  “Is there anything else you want me to do today?” I looked at the schedule on the wall and came to realize (at this point) that the class was supposed to have had math and CRE during the time I was teaching.  He said not to worry about it; they’ll cover those subjects on Monday.   Then he asked me if there was anything else I could teach that day (they are really, really shorthanded on teachers) and I said I could probably teach science, as long as I had a lesson plan.  So for the next period I taught the kids on the differences between cash crops and food crops.  We did exercises and, this time, I heard the bell.  I tried to leave the room, but another teacher came by and told me just to continue.  So we did examples of crops, we drew pictures on the board of different crops and I asked them questions about what they learned.  Then the next bell sounded and a social studies teacher came to relieve me of my duties.   I got back to the teachers’ lounge and had a talk with another teacher who was on break (he turned out to be a high school student volunteering since high school didn’t start until the following Monday…awesome teen.) We chatted about life: what he wants to do after high school, what kind of career he wants and I told him about myself.  It was nice.  This guy actually graduated from this primary school (though he was from the community and not the home).  It was really encouraging to see him willing to spend his time teaching those younger kids who needed a helping hand.  After that I walked back to the home to have lunch with Jayne for an hour.  I walked back to the school because I’d promised the boys that I’d come and play football with them.  (On Fridays they have games after school).  So I sat for an hour with Eric and the other teachers as the girls got to play.  Then I got on the field with a team to play for the next two hours.  There were three teams.  I was on the third team so we waited on the first game (first team to score stays on).   My team played pretty well together, though we only won one match of 4(maybe not good enough).  Some games were quick and the others dragged on and on especially as we all got more tired.   After the games there was a flag lowering ceremony and we walked back to the home.  I had some good conversations with the boys as we walked.   Then I went back to my quarters and pretty much crashed from fatigue.   Wow what a day!

The next day, Saturday, we woke up early to to go to the farm owned by the home.  It was a long drive over some very bumpy roads (we had to get off the asphalt on to the dirt shoulders at some points because the road was so bad).   Anyhow, we got to the farm and saw all the food that is grown for the school.  (It is Jayne’s dream for the home to become completely self-sufficient.)  The farm plays a big part.  This season, however, was not a good one.   The rains failed and caterpillars had infested much of the crop.   But there were still some plants that produced a crop.  There were also 3 green houses on the 10 acre farm which are being used to grow peppers (Green, Red, and Yellow).   We took some time to harvest them, picking the good ones and tossing the bad.   There was some bad news though.  Overnight there was a very strong wind storm.  One of the green houses had half of its plastic roof ripped off.  Not good in these conditions for the peppers.  So Jayne made some calls for someone to come fix it.   


The farm with green houses in the background



This is fun. Career change, perhaps?

Hello Donkey!

 They said they’d meet us at the nearest town.  So we rode to town, had some lunch while waiting (nyama choma (barbequed meat… yumm), ugali and kachumbari (a tomato based salad)).   Jayne sent us back to the home with a taxi while she and Chris headed back to the farm with the technician.   On Saturdays the kids spend quite a bit of time cleaning.  They wash their clothes, wash the carpets, and bathe the little kids who can’t bathe themselves.   We went out to chat with the kids who were done cleaning and I got to play some more football with the boys.   Then something I thought was pretty cool happened.  The kids heard that I was a minister so they started asking all sorts of questions about the Bible.  “Who saw the burning bush?” “Who was Jesus’ mom?” “Who was in the lion’s den?”  After passing their test they approved of me being called a minister.  We talked for a bit and they were so blown away because a minister would still play with them, from football to volleyball and handstands they would say “You’re a pastor and you do such things? What?”  But yeah, we played pretty much until the sun went down.  Then Mu and I went to bed.  It was another long day.

The following weeks we had pretty much the same routine: wake up at 7am, have breakfast and head out the door to the school by 8am, teach from 8:15am until lunch at 1pm, eat lunch back at the Centre with Jayne, head back to the school by 2pm and then finish the afternoon classes at 3:50pm.  Then we head back to the Centre, play with the kids for a while, go to prayers with them until 7pm, have our dinner and finally relax for the evening.   It was so great getting home completely worn out but knowing that you’d been able to do something that really made a difference in the kids’ lives.  

Vernon preaching.

On our last Sunday at the Centre we went to the school for church service.   There was a woman from the community, Maria, who came to lead the kids in worship.  She’s been coming for the last year or so.   At first she said that the kids were not really into it, but after a while the kids really came to enjoy service.   Pretty much it was them that lead the service, where Maria was the facilitator.   The kids got up and sang to God in English and Swahili (yeah, I was lost for half the songs, but sang in my heart anyway).  Then there were prayers.  And then, what I thought was really awesome, the kids got up and gave testimonies about what God has been doing in their lives.  Some did this straight from the heart “this is what happened” and others got up and just sang a song that God put on their hearts.   I was glad to see it, the joy that these kids had despite their situations.  After this there were more prayers and then I had the opportunity to share the word with them.  I really wanted to encourage them to persevere despite their troubles.   I shared from 1 Peter where it says we shouldn’t be surprised when troubles come, but rejoice in God anyway.  I also shared from 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 where it says “though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we do not set our hearts on what is seen, but what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”.  (This is one of my favorite passages) Then I shared some of God’s promises, Jeremiah 29:11-13 – He has plans to prosper us and not harm us, Deuteronomy 31:6 - he will never leave us or forsake us, and Isaiah 40:28-31 – those who hope in him will soar like eagles, run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.   It was a great day of worship and sharing the word.  

Heading back from church.

For our last few days in Ngong we’d been teaching at the school, helping the kids as much as possible.   Another teacher at the school moved on to greener pastures late the previous week so Eric was quite stressed on what to do to keep the students’ classes going.  All the teachers tried to fill in the gaps along with us volunteers.   Then the school got another volunteer that helped a lot to stabilize the teaching load.   Praise God for hearing our prayers for more help at the school.

Though our time at the home had come to an end we still came back a few more times the following weeks for a few hours only this time to work with the staff on some projects that the school needed.   The one we really wanted to help with was finding a way to bring tap water to the school for drinking, cooking and, especially, hand washing.  We met with one of the board members, Christiano, and worked on a plan to make it happen.  The project ended up costing slightly less than $1,000.

Also, while we were there, on one Sunday, a friend to the children’s home came to hold a barbeque for the kids.   The kids ate and played games all day.  It was really great to see the kids doing something with their Sunday besides cleaning and watching TV and to see other people who had a passion for these kids.  We’ll keep praying for the kids and doing what we can to support them.   

 

Yummy bbq.  I also couldn't wait to dig in.

Field day.

Sack race for the little ones.

If you’d like to help the home, shoot me an e-mail and we’ll get you connected to Jayne.  You can go there and spend a week or two or however long and teach at the school or help with a much needed project e.g. renovating the pit latrines into more modern toilets etc.