Day 6 - Learning Their Stories

Heavy hearts all around on our last day of curriculum teaching as we learn more about these kids we have fallen in love with. Many children at the school go to school with baggage. Not their backpacks, rather the pressures and disappointments of their home lives.

Some are facing the challenge of not having either parent and of living in an orphanage of forty others in cramped spaces. Others are missing one or the other parent an find themselves in subsistence conditions. Still others are fighting for their lives in a daily bout with terminal diseases. Just the other day, a three year old girl was found walking the campus outside the school grounds. She is all alone and living with HIV. I'm finding it very difficult to complain about not having coffee when I want it.

Our work is emotionally draining, and yet spiritually satisfying. Most all of the students have made the significant decision, and we revel in the understanding that we will rejoice with them again some day. Others we continue to lift up and know He is working in and around them.

Earlier in the day we experienced a celebration for older students entering a teacher training program. This is big deal as it is rare to receive an invitation to a celebration such as this. It was filled with marching, music, dancing, and ceremony. Quite different from my experience as a teacher in training.

This evening was also the second of three parent meetings this week. We continued our health and hygiene training, providing parents with the information we had given to their children the past couple days with some added instruction of how to better take care of them if they get sick. A message of hope was also delivered and many were encouraged.

Kudos to all of our team members for making this week awesome for the students and informative for the parents and to those supporters back home who made, and are making this experience possible. We look forward to tomorrow's endeavors. Day 7's post should be a doozy!

Blessings to you all.