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We had a beautiful day once again. We started out again with our team to sort beans. Everyday more children from the camp join in to help. It's super sweet!
Then the sweetest little hungry bellies were full of porrige. Their smiles speak loudly.
We started the morning singing and dancing again. The numbers grew the first couple of days and now it's a consistent number around 800 children. This morning, Vane, one of our teenage girls from Mattaw, led our time of praise and worship. Her voice shakes nations.
Then we had our son Dan stand up and share his testimony. Another voice that was once not heard and now is.
He now has a powerful testimony of what love and adoption looks like. This is a young man that once slept on the streets of Lodwar town (capital of Turkana). Back in April when we were here, Dan walked to town with me and showed me the area he used to beg for food and what cement slab he used to sleep on. He was seven. SEVEN years old. He remembers a shop owner giving him fish to deliver to the shop owners son and Dan ate it instead. And because of that, he sneaked into a bus and ran away to Kitale streets. And because of that, we found him on the streets of Kitale around age 8 or 9. He shared how adoption into our family changed his life but what changed him even more was adoption into God's family. Proud mama moment to see him confidently stand and testify of God's goodness and grace.
Pastor Wilson then came and shared with the children. He has such an anointing and calling to the Turkana people. Amazing to see how the children respond to his fatherly love. It's an honor to partner with him and his family to see the Kingdom advance in this region.
His children and ours are good buddies now and love to play the piano with the lead musician John from pastor Wilson's church.
We then broke into tribes again. Our oldest group of young men are with our other son, Ian. They are the tribe of Judah and the only group without a solid team color. They are the camo team. It is pretty fitting as we see these young men give their life's to be in Gods army. That the only fighting is spiritually, against the devil and his bad guys. It's beautiful to see Ian take a place of leadership and minister to these guys. They eat up every word of encouragement he has to give. He's in the middle of this picture with a black and red hat on. (Where's Waldo!)
While everyone was in class and playing games, Claire, Mama Lucy and I found baby Lucy to feed and love on.
I am completely smitten over this little. And here's a funny part. Here name isn't Lucy! It's Ruthie. Either the sisters name is Lucy or we heard wrong and the sister just let us call her what we heard. After camp yesterday, our Rebecca found the mom. And for sure we found out the mom's name is Rebecca! Ha. Of course it is. So nurse Rebecca, Pastor Paul (pastors the church in IDP camp who is part of Pastor Wilson's church), Mama Lucy and I sat and talked to baby Ruthie's mom. She was a bit drunk but not to the point of not being able to talk clearly with us. She has seven children. All the children have the same dad. After baby Ruthie was born, the man ran off and remarried. So when Mama Lucy ministered to her and told her it's not ok to drink, she admitted its wrong and that she does it because she's stressed out trying to feed and school her children. It was completely heartbreaking. But as we shared about Jesus, her heart opened. We are king to her house today and look forward to what God is doing in her life. Our nurse Rebecca's heart is exploding to get this babe rehabilitated physically. Updates to come.
We ended the day with beans and rice and seeing more happy faces.
After camp we had one of the most amazing time of reuniting two of our Mattaw girls with their family. It was one of those moments of wanting to pinch myself to make sure it was real. I could make a movie out of it. These girls are twins living in house two at Mattaw. And I'll have to write a completely separate post here on the blog to share the full story. I promise I'll share soon!
Now for the sorrow part of our day. I share this to ask for your prayers. Especially for the mattaw children. Our teacher Dorcas who is here with us received a phone call this morning to let us know teacher Winner passed away last night. She's been a teacher at Mattaw since 2008. We aren't sharing with the Mattaw youth here with us until after the camp. We are now starting our last day and want to finish strong. We were told that Teacher Winnie became sick last week with an illness unknown. They rushed her to the hospital last night then she passed away. We believe she is with Jesus now and take great comfort in that. She was a great teacher and we are thankful for the years she served our littles. Your prayers are greatly appreciated.
Off to start our last day. As always, expectant for great things to happen with these crazy beautiful children!
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