Around Mattaw...

This past week we've enjoyed having our second team around for the summer.  Our children have especially enjoyed all the games and crafts.  This team is from Illinois, Georgia and Alabama.  Yesterday morning they went to a nearby school that we had not taken teams to yet.  It was fun for them to go and love on children that had not ever had any international people visit them.  Several students were very unsure of how friendly they were but soon discovered they could laugh and play together.  It's the simple acts of love that bring joy to a child.  I shared with the team that the children will be talking about them for months if not years.  They then came back to eat lunch at Mattaw which was matoke, potatoes and rice.  Matoke is cooking bananas that taste similar to potatoes but a bit more flavor.  One of my favorites.  I have discovered it's one of Ezra's favorites too!  Then our five volunteers here for the summer tackled the storage container to find birthday gifts for the children we celebrate today and also had some fun sorting clothes and doing a little fashion show.  The team did their backyard bible club schedule with all the children again.  They split up into groups where they did crafts, music, recreation and bible stories.  The story yesterday was Daniel in the lions den.  Then the team leader came with some of our staff from town where they graciously bought our church a pick up bed full of new plastic chairs.  We are all so very grateful!  They noticed how we have expanded and several children shared chairs and adults had to stand.  Here's a few pictures I snapped yesterday...

One of our volunteers, Joe, with Franco.  And two girls from the team in the background getting their hair braided. 

Making lions out of paper plates

Moses very proudly showing me his name tag

The day before yesterday the team made hats with the kiddos and yesterday they were all matching their clothes with the color hat they had.

Viona in purple

Alex leading rec

And today we say our goodbyes.  Time flies when teams are so great!  This coming week we do not have a team so it is an off week.  Hoping the rains aren't as heavy so we can get a day in at the pool with our kiddos and at least pretend it's summer time.  All our friends' facebook pictures are making us miss the Texas summer fun!  And be sure to keep checkin the mattaw website as we continue to share with you 60 days around Mattaw.  This week we are starting with house one and sharing more stories of our families at Mattaw!  www.mattawchildren.com