Day 4

Sunday- oh BEAUTIFUL Sunday!

Started the day with a bus ride to The Hill at Camp Life. ALL of the children from The Tree of Life orphanage met us for church services... this my friends, you will want to read about in a future blog (I am limited on what will post, when we have Internet access as well as exhausted) so stay tuned!!!

So, all 300 of the precious kids joined us for church, so cute! They sang- oh MY goodness they sang their their little hearts out so loud and proud I cried! We had a "guest" Pastor, who gave a wonderful sermon, unlike anything I had ever heard. It was (for lack of better terms ((in my opinion)) raw and brutally honest. He spoke about family, and how we are all one big family, and getting to know your family and most importantly to include God in that family first. He cleared up some questions I had walking in to this about life, church, organizations, labels, and love for your fellow man. He was charismatic, humorous, passionate and for me, relatable! I needed his words on this Sunday before I meet these ten children I am going to greet tomorrow.

Let's talk about praying... when we (you and I) pray, we pray silently, if we are at church and they say, "let us pray", one person prays and we silently pray along, if they say, "take a moment for your prayers to be heard", we pray our own personal prayer silently. Zambian's, they are loud and proud and then a little louder than their neighbor, while the Pastor is leading the prayer! They GET INTO their prayer, they say it with commitment and passion- I was a little taken back- I had no idea! With my eyes closed ready to silently pray along with the pastor, I was overcome with joy for these people who believe so deeply, who are so proud of their Faith and so confident to put their prayers out for the world to hear! I simply have never been that confident, not that I don't have the Faith, or believe enough, and maybe it is a cultural thing, but this blew me AWAY! I, in fact, LOVED IT, and I am praying (although silently) that this will happen again tomorrow, and every day that I am here. IT WAS POWERFUL!

Singing... These kids sing! There were two choirs that performed for us, AWESOME! I have video, and when I can blog from a normal computer rather than my iPhone, I will post it.

Peter, let me tell you, read about him in the future- Peter, they strong, tough looking, sensitive, please sit close to me and let me rest my head on your shoulder Peter! Coming soon...

We had lunch then went to shop our own personal Zambian Market! They brought the vendors to us! How cool! I definitely did my part to support the Zambian economy! Again, another post- you will want to see the treats I found!

For the most exciting part of my day! I met one of my Zambian camp partners and found out a little about my group!!! I got boys! 10 super awesome 6-8 year old boys... I am SO PUMPED! I have been hoping and praying that I would get a group of little boys! I did, I did!!! Grace will be guiding me through this! No people, literally her name is Grace! She is one of two of my Zambian partners! She is ADORABLE! She has volunteered at Camp Life for three years, so she knows what she is doing! Her smile could light up a room! She is in school, turning 21 in November, lives with her Mom and two sisters and loves pink! We only had about 5 mins to chat, so that is all I know right now, but there will be more to come on this precious gem as the week goes on!

Then we sang and danced, it was a rehearsal of sorts for what is to come tomorrow. We sing and dance a lot with our kids- I begged Grace not to laugh at me, she said, "I will not laugh, I will just smile at you"... she will laugh, the kids will laugh, I will laugh, too bad you are not here and you could laugh too! ;-)

That was a pretty full day, so we headed home, grabbed dinner, had a meeting and packaged up supplies for the kids name necklaces, then headed to the house to make PB&J sandwiches for our lunches tomorrow. Luke warm shower and I am about to crash.

I know these posts are a bit scrambled and scattered and I probably have a ton of misspelled words, and bad grammar, but seriously, I am using my iPhone, I am exhausted and well, it would be like this regardless, so just enjoy the content! :-)

I am in LOVE with Zambia, as a whole, the people are beautiful and peaceful! They are insanely friendly and warm. The children... I don't know what to say, I have fallen in LOVE, and I haven't even met my boys! I am afraid of how much I am going to love these kids tomorrow, I am scared my heart is going to explode! I have been so blessed to have a wonderful family, a patient (if that is misspelled it isn't supposed to be the word that refers to someone who is being seen by a doctor) kind, loving husband, a Lemon who isn't always sour and a bunch of super awesome friends to boot- SO tomorrow, I literally think my love level is going to be so great, my heart may explode- full on firework show explosion folks, you will be able to see it in the Texas sky! These are going to be MY boys! Their lives quite possibly will be determined by my actions! Not like my dance moves, c'mon people, be serious here! I have already committed to finding each of my boys and American sponsor- in a heart felt conversation coming your way soon! ;-) I have seen the impact this program has on these children- it is good! God is doing GREAT things through this ministry. PLEASE come back tomorrow to see my post! Meet MY boys!!!

I don't have kids- I have never lay in bed worried about my child's health, or safety- I am lying here right now, so worried about my 10 boys and the lives they are living and searching every inch of my heart to figure out how I can help them... This is going to be a long night... to my Mom and Dad, thanks for all you have done and still do for me!

Keep in touch- xoxo