Praise

There is a woman named Praise. She loves Jesus. She loves her children. She is truly amazing. Praise has 24 foster children whom she has taken in as her own and she raises. She built up a place for herself and these children, she made a school for her children and other village children, and she does this all by herself for the most part as a single mom. How awesome is that?! She is beautiful and her children are beautiful. We got to spend a day with her and it was such a blessing.

We arrived at Praise's and were surrounded by sweet little African children singing "Hello visitors, you are welcome!" At that, we knew it was going to be a great day.

We began the day with walking around and touring Praise's house, school, and beautiful land. It was breath taking how beautiful it was! Our next journey was to the water hole that they had to go to every day to get dirty water..we were there to change that! The children grabbed their jerry cans and we all began about a mile walk to the water hole. It was so much fun to walk, talk, and just love these precious children. They loved talking to us, holding our hands and just being.

We finally got to the water place and it was heart breaking. Americans would die before they allowed their dogs to drink from this type of water, yet precious children were doing so every day because it was all they had! We rejoiced that we were here to change that, grabbed the water, took a few pictures, and began the hike back. Once we returned, the guys began to build the rain catcher water thingy. haha. This way clean water would be caught in this huge container and they don't have to walk to get water anymore. The best part? The water is 90% cleaner than what they were using!

Once returning the children put on a show for us! It was so cute and so fun! They sang all kinds of songs for us and danced and showed us how to Praise the Lord! They blessed us more than we could ever bless them. The last performance was a skit and song. It was about HIV/AIDS and really spoke to all of us. Parents are dying, Children are crying, AIDS is the reason, It's time to come together! How true is that? I saw with my own eyes just what this horrible disease does and I saw the product of it; orphaned children. It was so deep for 3-10 year olds to be teaching us about on such a fun {but serious} level.

Tears. This little girl broke my heart. We quickly gave me a snack and painted her nails. Everything was good after that :) 

We began a 'mini' bible school for the kids {90+} at Praise's school. We painted more nails, colored, had bible story time and handed out treats for the children! It was so much fun!

 

When that was all over and we were just hanging out George, Edwin, Sam, and Junior began to dance. More like teach Sam how to dance. It was so funny to watch these men put on leaf skirts and show us up on how to dance! They were so good. Sam, though, well..he tried. :) Our team was full of joy, surprises and just lots of fun! In the dancing, it proved that.

The kids all crowded around me as I tried to teach myself how to play the drums. They laughed at me and thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen!

Eventually a sweet little boy attempted to teach Alicia, Emma, and I how to do it. Needless to say, it ended in the little boy basically rolling on the ground from laughter and Alicia, Emma, and I breaking out into the 'American' dances. It was fun regardless and I would give anything to be back doing the dances with the african boys right now. Being laughed at and all.