July 29, Judy's Retreat with the Hands of Hope Aunties

From Judy's 7-29-14 email:

"Thanks for your prayers! Had a great Aunties (orphan caregivers) Retreat. Expected 30-ish ladies, and 49 showed up!  A great day of sharing the Word of God through Bible studies as well as making crafts and desserts!  

MANY thanks to Westover MOPS for the delightful treat bags!

Thursday Night (7-24-14):

What a great day!!! The bath house was completed just before the sunset last night. Lots of cheers went up as the last bucket of cement was being poured into the final bag. As a way to honor the men who had worked so diligently alongside our team all week, the guys from our team followed the example of the woman in Luke 7:36-50 and humbled themselves and washed the feet of these brothers in Christ. 

We finished our last full day of camp, by throwing a special birthday party for all the kids. They were treated like kings and queens as we sang to them, gave them each a cupcake, and a few small gifts. The total joy and excitement in the room was priceless and hard to for us to convey in a simple blog post!

Thursday....

Matthew 20:37..."And whosover will be chief among you, let him be your servant." One of the hightlights for me as a team leader is seeing the lives of the team SHINE. One of my favorite things in this world is soaking in the African skies and at night soaking in the stars shining like diamonds on black velvet. That is the way I feel about the Servanthood when people on a team are totally commited to Christ and being HIS servant. Each one becomes a bright star as they are serving in a new country with so many differences. It has blessed my heart beyond measures to watch the team and hear their hearts as they process. Each person has worked soooooo very hard, whether it be with teaching the kids, who for the most part have never been to school, or working construction. In the States parents freely use Ridalin as the "calming" for those with ADD.........that is not something found around here, :) so there are lots of hyperactive but also very hurting kids. As we hear the backgrounds and their stories our hearts are just broken. We are understanding the quote...."Lord, let my heart be broken with the things that hurt yours. The things that hurt God's heart, should hurt ours. The abuse and neglect and the poverty that they have experienced are painful to hear and even harder to accept or absorb. Each of the team is responding in their individual ways....Please pray as we all begin the goodbyes on Friday, and process in our own hearts.

 Today is our last "work" day. Please pray for the Biblical truths that we are teaching today. Pray for the fun times, the games times, and the craft times. Also tonight we are having a Birthday Party. Thanks to the Westover 4/14 team that has organized Birthday cards and fun things as we celebrate all 55 kids and staff that are here. I wish I could convey the exceptional bonding of the team with ALL the people with whom we are working. There is a harmony and unity that I would like to say is too hard to explain....but then, why should it? We have said over and over that this IS the way the body of Christ should be... laughing and singing and ABSOLUTE back breaking, cement work, learning to relate to active happy kids who have so much JOY when they have so little.

I am so blessed by the Servant hearts of each one on this team............... The time has gone quickly, still much to be done. Thanks for your Prayers....... We LITERALLY have felt them every single day.

From Jephat's Facebook Post

As Jephat said: 'The Hard Work is Done!"  Praise the Lord!

Day One of Camp & Construction

Day one of camp is complete! Campers were up and ready to start at 4am! We weren't. :) We were able to give every child a new pair of shoes and a Camp Allelu t-shirt. There were lots of smiles when they received these new things. We split the kids up into groups based on their ages and were able to spend some time in small groups discussing the story of the Good Samaritian, doing a craft, and teaching basic math and English. Each group came up with a chant and presented it at the evening meeting. Free time in the afternoon was filled with a low ropes course, crafts, reading, and soccer. We finished up the day with some singing and dancing to the beat of african drums! 

Construction on the bath house began today as well. The construction team worked alongside several other Christian men from Zimbabwe all day and got a good start on things. It is definitely back breaking work mixing dirt and cement. A little competition ended the day as we picked teams and raced each other to complete one layer of the walls.

The Kids Arrived!

Big smiles, blankets, soccer balls and Aunties in tow. The kids arrived!!! How fun it was when we saw Taurayi.... a dear little boy who was at Camp Allelu 2013. He arrived with his name tag from last year and a BIG smile....and one little guy had his last year's T-shirt!!! There was so much JOY among the kids...AND ALL of us! We had a wonderful first evening and loved singing and dancing with the kids. We can't wait for many more memories to come this week! Thank you Jesus!

On Sunset Summit

Hi everyone...you are the BEST prayer team!  Things could not be going any smoother...from the NY connection, to the arrival and ALL THE LUGGAGE getting through sooooo easy. (Judy chatted with the ladies at the customs counter while Jeff Neubauer (or Fryer...one of the Jeffs!) quickly put them through the x-ray machine.....ALL went thru without a hitch.)

GOD is so obviously here with us, surrounding and blessing us. Church today was so special. Gari's message was such a blessing....the singing was out of this world.  Anna's birthday is today, so we celebrated pretty much all day in different ways. We won't have internet until next week, but we will try.  KIDS arrive in hour....YAY!!!

The children listen intently as "Mbuya" (Judy) speaks...I wonder if she is is speaking to them in Shona?  (VS)  :-)

 

The evening's icebreakers begin...

...and a Camp Allelu GSO skit makes its Camp Allelu Zimbabwe debut!  :-)