Today and yesterday have been filled with sick people. My sister and my two nephews and one niece all have the flu. Or a flu. I don't know if it's the flu. I love taking care of them and even more, I love that I am not sick. And for the past two days I keep thinking in the back of my mind that I am getting behind on my blog and when that happens I tend to never get back here. I've been hounding myself in my head all day to find time to do this. But now that today is over and I am sitting here I can see the perfection in the timing of all of this.
After ringing in the New Year and the church service that followed we had a day to recoup because the campers who had stayed strong needed time to shower off five days of camp. Ashley and I were in our last week and our team would be doing the EAC "regular" projects. EAC takes time each week to visit several places. We were blessed enough to experience four; a children's hospital, a babies' home, a remand home for juvenile offenders and a home for street kids.
I can't remember the order without looking in my journal but I can remember exactly what we did at each place and several faces of children from each home. I can remember the lessons we taught and the chores we helped complete. I can remember several injuries and defects in the hospital and at least three specific babies with green runny noses. I can remember little Francis, who after thirty minutes found a special place in my heart. I can vividly see the faces of the juveniles who told me so much about themselves without fear of judgement. And that one little toddler who kept shaking his booty to the guitar music.
In two of the homes we were not permitted to take photos for very legitimate reasons. I can imagine how hard it must be for the employees of these institutions to deal with new groups of excited Mzungus coming in and out all the time. In the babies' home I had a little boy who looked about three years old run up to me crying for one reason or another and I picked him up and held him until his teacher kindly informed me that 'we don't hold the children in the classrooms'. I hadn't even realized I was in a classroom. And don't worry, nothing was wrong with him. I believe he had been told to put his shoes on and instead he had started crying.
So yesterday, here at home, while I played with the baby and the two fevered children slept, and then again today while two recovering children fought and the sick baby and his mama slept, I keep drifting back to those places, to those children. It's amazing to me the difference in how illness effects our little American children and how it effects the little African kids. I won't bore you with sob stories, but I could. I won't guilt you into sponsoring a child, but I should. It's really such an amazing thing to see how giving something that you won't even miss will completely change the course of a child's life. Ok, maybe I just did what I said I wouldn't do. I can't help it.
Always, in addition to helping with physical needs, our priority is to fill spiritual needs. Some of the facilities we visited are run by Christian groups or churches. In all of them we spoke of Jesus and prayed with the kids. So many of the older kids in the remand home were touched by our willingness to spend time talking with and to them. The testimonies that were relayed to me are incredible. In the babies' home the walls were posted with bible verses to remind the workers to be patient, loving, trusting. Those babies might not have families but they are fairing better than most American orphans in that they are being exposed to Truth every day.
I guess I'll plug EAC here because they really are doing amazing things all in Christ's name.
www.empower-a-child.org
I could go on and on and on with stories about the kids I met and the gross things I cleaned off the floor of the babies' home but I'd like to keep this short. These projects were like nothing I've ever experienced before, including the last time I was in Uganda. If you seek perspective about anything (germs, poverty, what qualifies as "dish soap") I would advise you to go to Africa and visit a place like one of these. Short of that, you can ask me for a sob story on behalf of the kids I met and the places I saw. I'll gladly have us both in tears.
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