We were able to distribute some clothes to our 25 new orphan children this week. Since they were late coming into the program, they were behind on what they were to receive for the year, so all at once they got school uniforms, a set of out of school clothes, a set of sports clothes (literally a soccer jersey and shorts), and a pair of shoes. The zoo of chaos that ensues when we start handing out clothes is overwhelming. Our abilities to give correct clothes and shoe sizes is a shot in the dark at best and it is always an interesting situation when we start trying to distribute the right size clothes to the right child. Nevertheless, many of the children were stripped down and placed in their new clothes before they ever left the building. The smiles on their faces were really precious.
Yesterday, we “accidentally” ended up at one of the orphan beneficiary homes while we were attempting to go to one of the goat beneficiary homes – it is often a confusing situation when we try to go visit. As we stepped into the yard, the little 6 year old child that is in our program came running out in her new clothes from two days before, which she had probably been wearing since then, and grabbed hold of both mine and Kim’s hands. Kids here generally aren’t very affectionate towards us, even kids that know us. Mostly it is because they are shy, especially towards people who look very strange to them due to a different skin color. Needless to say, Kim and I revelled in the fact that she was so warm and affectionate. She just curled up right beside me on the floor and held on to me the whole time I was in the house.
As we sat there talking, we found out that the mother of another of our children was in that home visiting at the moment and she started unburdening her worries onto one of our workers. She explained that she wasn’t from here, but had married a man who was, but she is now sick with HIV and he left her in this town and has taken another wife and moved away. So, she is in a town where she was not raised with at least one child (not sure if there are others) and she is sick with HIV, so she obviously has health care needs. We stopped and prayed for her before we left, but I am asking you also to pray for her and for our relationship with her, that we would be able to help her where possible and show and speak the love of the Son to her always.
Below are some pictures that Kim took from the distribution. She is quite the photographer, I think, and I am excited to have some fresh material to pass along to you guys. All the little kids in this group are just absolutely precious and seeing their smiles and new clothes was really encouraging for us. I am really hoping and wanting to get to have more regular interactions with them and speak love and worth and truth into their lives. Please ask that this would be possible. #gallery-687-3 { margin: auto; } #gallery-687-3 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-687-3 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-687-3 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
