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Okay so the day seems super long, especially when you start the day at 5:30AM. We were up super early and left at 6 this morning for a boat ride on Lake Victoria, which is the second largest lake in the world. Our guides were very fun and pointed out birds, fish traps, trees, the pretty but destructive plants that grow on the lake and hippos!! It was incredibly cool to be so close. We didn’t get to hear them make noise, so that was slightly disappointing but the guides and John making hippo sounds more than made up for it.
Today is African Child Day, where children and their basic rights are celebrated. We were able to go back to the youth jail. We weren’t able to have much interaction with the children because we arrived during the program time. We saw a couple of skits, but most of it was in Kswahili. Our friend George did some interpreting for us. There were a couple of young men who were quite the comedic actors and they had the audience cracking up.
After the celebration, Amanda and Suzanne went to the District Hospital with Pastor Martin. District Hospital is broken up into small buildings. They started off in the older children/adult wing. They each prayed over a room of patients and then went and prayed with patients one-on-one. Then, they went to the children’s building which housed babies to 5 year olds. Upon walking in, there was a tiny baby laying on one of the beds. There aren’t really words to describe the emotions of seeing multiple children sharing a hospital bed. There are usually two patients per bed and their families crowd in beside them. Again, both girls were able to pray with individual families. I met a lady whose child or grandchild was in the hospital. Another child was dropped off and no family members have come to take care of the child. Each time this child sees this lady, he reaches out his arms. Praise the Lord, this woman has a compassionate heart. She has been taking care of this child as well as her own. Some patients aren’t as lucky.
After the hospital visit, Amanda and Suzanne traveled by tuc tuc and met up with the rest of the team at Pastor Martin’s house. He and his wife are currently caring for 23 children, which means they have enough children to put on family futbol matches. John, Suzanne, Blake, and Amanda joined the match and were thoroughly outplayed. We are currently the walking wounded. John pulled a muscle in the first 30 seconds, Amanda (full of grace) randomly tripped over a tree root and scraped her hands and bruised her knee, Blake in an effort to make Amanda feel better also had a few problems staying on his feet. Suzanne left the first half early due to be being surrounded every time she got near the ball which led to her being kicked in the ankle which is also bruising quite nicely. It was a good time, but we won’t be turning professional anytime soon.
Finally, we came home and cleaned up in order to go to dinner at Kiboko Bay Resort on Lake Victoria. It was a very nice restaurant with beautiful scenery. We took lots of pictures and even saw a couple of hippos close to shore.
Prayer Requests: John’s leg…he is still currently limping. Amanda and Suzanne are still pretty emotional from their hospital visits. Ashley had a really hard time leaving the orphan’s prison because of a particular connection she had with a student and didn’t really have time to connect with her today. Laura is really grateful for everything and please continue to pray for her family at home (they are doing well and she would like it to stay that way), and also that we would continue to do God’s work here. Please remember the African orphans in prayer. Also, pray for Pastor Martin and Mama Joskey as they raise 23 children in God’s Word.
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beautifularethefeet 
I am loving these prayer requests in “real time!” Thank you so much for providing them! Lake Victoria looks gorgeous. My heart is also breaking for the children you have come in contact with–they will be in my prayers as are all of you!
Comment by Stacie@HobbitDoor June 14, 2009 @ 3:29 pm