A Humbling Day

Saturday March 19, 2011

My heart is heavy as I think about leaving Canaan’s tomorrow. Every day I am here I fall in love more and more. I have some exciting news to share! Ruthie, the little one that I have fallen in love with needs a sponsor and I am going to sponsor her! She is 3 years old and has only been here at Canaan’s for two weeks. Her parents both died in a car crash and she is completely orphaned. She has become my little love bug. Every time she sees me she runs into my arms and cries every time I put her down. I am going to be so sad to leave her and will miss her so much!! But, it will be so awesome to sponsor her and watch her grow. I already can’t wait to come back to Canaan’s and see her along with all of the other children I have come to love. I had so many great conversations today with children and many divine moments.

I need to back track though. For most of the day we spent our time working with the children of the Amazima ministry. I got to meet Katie today and many of her children. Their facility there is so nice! They just recently built an amazing playground for the children and a chapel. It was so cool to see it in person and see the children’s faces as they played. The big thing that Amazima does is feed the children every Saturday. I got to help serve all of the children their food, which was humbling and quite the experience. We made an assembly line filling their bowls with plenty of rice, beans and chicken. There was so much food and each child ate it all when I couldn’t even finish all of the rice! After spending the day at Amazima we headed back to Canaan’s for an amazing afternoon/evening.

We had the opportunity to provide the children at Canaan’s with nice new shoes for school, along with socks, and silly bands for them to play with. We called each child by name, took their shoes off, washed and dried their feet and put their new shoes on. I loved being able to serve the children in this way and give back to them just a little bit of what they have given to me. I have never experienced this kind of love. The children honestly don’t even know the word mean. They don’t know hate. They only know the Lord’s love and how to share it with others. So many children have written me the sweetest notes that I will forever cherish. I can’t believe how much being here has changed my heart and made me feel so whole and fulfilled. I prayed before I came for God to show me childlike faith, and He has gone above and beyond!

Tomorrow we spend the day again at Katie’s but working with the Karamajong tribe. These children will be bused in from where they live. They are considered the least of the least and will be the poorest children yet. I only have two more days left and am going to make the most of every minute I have here. It is so exhausting but the Lord has been providing and giving me his energy to keep going. He is so mighty!