Orphanage #24

Its been a good week of relationship building at Orphaange #24. Most of the kids are enjoying the activities and are already asking if we will come again! That's always a good sign! Things did come together for this orphanage and we somehow seemed to have enough supplies for everyone. I still haven't figured out that one nor have I figured out how a boy with 2 fishes and 5 loaves of bread helped Jesus to feed 5000! :-)

Monday thay put on a wonderful performace for us with one of the girls featured who won 2nd place in the city among orphanages. Afte the performance, I introduced our team, the translators, and encouraged the kids to come to me if they had questions any time during the week. On Thursday, one little girl reminded me of that and asked for a nightlight for her room! Somewhere, I need to find a nightlight! :-)

Tuesday the kids began more structured activities with Bible studies, games, and crafts all woven in together to share the Gospel. Each group reacted differently and had their various challenges these last few days.

Marsha Harris had trouble with a group of roving older boys coming into her room to bum cirgrattees. Stan Harris had a rough first couple of days, but it all come together with relationships on Wednesday and Thursday! We combined Harvey's and Terri Briggs group into one older teen group. When we made introductions on Monday, everyone wanted to be with Harvey!

Verda has had a tough time with her group. Only one girl wants to listen. One older boy is very distruptive and claims atheism. On Thursday as I sat with her group, one boy cut the hair of a girl sitting in front of him. The translator prombtly threw him out of the class. Nevertheless, with all the distruptions, Verda was able to answer a lot of questions with this one girl.

Sara Beth has had 19 kids in the 1st - 3rd grade combined group. They are a sweet bunch of kids and I enjoy hanging around their group. Sara Beth is an American who works here and wanted to be part of our mission team this week.

Sarah Parish also lives and works here and has done a great job with her small group of teens. She too wanted to work with us and even bring a couple of volunteers from the English class she teaches to get them involved in dojng ministry to orphans in St. Petersburg.

Becky, who is the director of Dawn Ministries, lives in Colorado Springs and visits here often. The kids in her music group also serve as our translators from Logos Church. It's another woven intertwined relationship weaving that is occuring here. It leads to them inviting some of the kids in their small group to church!

Today, Friday, the kids from Dawn will sing for the orphanage in a performance. I think it will be a treat since these kids have served as some of the small group translators this week. Becky has also asked a Christian Clown to come and perform for the kids this afternoon. It should be exciting!