Church...

Hello all! 

Well, it has been a week since I arrived in Africa. On one hand, it seems like it has been a very long time, but on the other, it seems like this is just routine life. 

I think that all of our hard work days are over and that from now on we will be doing more work on building relationships with different organizations. We will probably work on cleaning up two different orphanages next week just to help them maintain their productivity. There are so many mouths to feed, diapers to change, and faces to wash that some of the upkeep on buildings is overlooked. 

Yesterday was the first rain they have had here in months  (they got no rain during the normal rainy season). Generally the storms roll in, dump lots of rain, and roll out 10 minutes later.  Yesterday was a torrential downpour for a couple of hours. it was definitely a different experience being in a tin roofed building with leaks in it instead of in the basement of my house in the midst of the storm. God was showing His might for sure! 

The rain didn't keep the kids away during VBS though...we had over 200 village children there to sing, dance, have a snack, and do crafts. It was chaos, but they enjoy seeing the white people (mzungu) in their village. Two little boys, Michael and Joshua, stole my heart! So cute !

Today at church our 3 pastors gave the message so it was a shorter service than usual for the Africans...but it was still 2 1/2 hours long! At the end our team went on stage to pray for any villagers that wanted to be prayed over - we women prayed in teams of 2 for women & children. So amazing to hear that some heartaches are the same around the world, but also that so many here are affected in some way by HIV/AIDS and they wish to be healed from that. 

The villagers had made us lunch so we ate inside the wooden church structure made of limbs and bark. Amazing how little they get by on for church buildings in some places. 

Yeah for Sunday! Week 2 in Africa has begun! Excited to see what all God has in store this week...please keep praying for us all - some have been sick. Thanking the Lord that I have not been sick, no headaches, and no major injuries!