Celebrations and Joy
SO much joy today in visiting the LaPhare this morning - seeing the excitement in the children's eyes as we played "Minute to Win It" games, got our nails painted (even Ian!), and coloring. Such SWEET, loving and gracious children that we encountered. The mothers in our group couldn't be more proud of these amazing children that we are raising and witnessing this incredible growth happening within them.
We also visited Papillon and the Apparent Project, and incredible company that supports job creation to end child slavery and empower families to stay together. We enjoyed amazing smoothies and shopped...bringing home lots of jewelry, metal artwork, and pottery created by the incredibly talented staff. Our tour guide was super fun and made sure that we were excited to see EVERY part of the tour. One of the most incredible parts is that they offer FREE childcare and preschool for the workers there.
After Papillon and Apparent Project, our group split, with some going to Mother Teresa's Home for Sick and Dying babies, and the other part going to the "For His Glory" orphanage. The Mother Teresa group had an incredibly emotional, beautiful experience feeding, changing, holding, and loving on some very sick children. They were amazed at the fact that there were about 100 children there, and only four women on regular staff to do daily cares for them. At the orphanage, the rest of the group enjoyed a large playground area - playing basketball, doing more nails, doing sidewalk chalk, and coloring.
I will let Ian finish the rest of the evening....since Emily decided to make it is "birthday" today...and make sure to let everyone know everywhere that we went that it was his birthday.
- Loretta
Love
Well it was a pretty impactful day. I woke up this morning before everyone and when they woke up they kept saying happy birthday to me. I was so confused the entire time because I knew it wasn't really my birthday. So I just went with it.
After a delicious breakfast this morning we went to LaPhare which is one of the orphanages. The excitement in their eyes was so amazing to see that I almost about cried. These kids at every orphanage that we go to has moved me to be a better person.
So the word Love came to me by the love that my team members showed to the kids and the love that they showed back. I met this really cool kid today and his name was Wesley. He showed so much love to me. Eventually in my eyes we seemed to get very close in a short amount of time (We got some pretty cool pictures to!)
-"The Birthday Boy" Ian
