another update so soon!

The plan as of now is to leave tomorrow and to stay in the village for 8 days. We will continue to do the bible stories with the children there as well as bible studies with the adults each day and whatever else we can (such as fetching water) to help out some of the families. On the 1st Cecil along with our supervisor will be flying out to another island. Please pray for their safe travel. Please also pray for the health of our team. We are all getting sick with coughing and runny noses.

-Emily

quick update

The village was not nearly as rough as we were expecting it to be. We led a bible story and songs each day there just like we did in the other villages we visited. We also did some prayer walking through the village, visited with a few people, and had house church with some of the adults one night. In the afternoons after the story and songs we would go down to the beach with the kids and play games. We got to watch the sunset when we were at the beach. It was amazing! Watching it I am in awe and am reminded of God's great power and beauty. We will be going back to the children's home for a few days and it's still up in the air whether or not we'll be able to go back to the village. Sorry this is such a short update. We are almost halfway through, time sure flies by! Thank you so much for your prayers and comments!

-Emily

Emily says...

We have continued staying at the children's home and building relationships with the kids there. We have visited 4 refugee camps/villages. Just to give you an idea of these villages, one of them was a large building with basically cubicle like structures made of sticks which were the families' home. Going to these places really gives us a new appreciation for many things we take for granted. Monday we will leave the children's home to go stay in a village similar to the ones we have visited. We are a bit nervous because we don't know what exactly to expect, what we will be doing, or even how long we will be there! We are ready though. We'll really be putting "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength," to the test. I know we can do it, for us it will only be a few weeks at most. Some of the children we have gotten to know at the home are from this village, not to mention the many other children we haven't met yet who live in these villages. It's not just a few weeks for them, it's life.

Just a few more random tid-bits: we've been having an unwelcome visitor in our room the past few nights while we are trying to sleep. A rat!

There are some things that seem pretty universal: 1. God, 2. smiles, 3. high-fives, 4. kids with bubblewrap

To the Jefferson people, we are going through the book of Acts for our daily quiet times, this makes me think of y'all every morning.

so far...

We all got here safely. Our first four days were spent on one island for orientation. Most teams are staying on that island. Our team and one other flew out Monday to different islands. Right now we are staying at a children's home. We will be there for two weeks. In the afternoons we've been going to refugee camps and sharing stories with the children. When our two weeks with the children's home are done we will be going to the villages. We don't really know to much what to expect in the villages.

Please keep the other teams in your prayers too. Because of the island we are on we shouldn't encounter the problems one of the other teams have had but they were questioned by police and all their materials were taken.

-Emily