Update #2 from Barb

Just an update, we physically dug holes in the dirt, move 40 pound bricks, and saw lumber for a slum church, to build a class room. We laid 80 pound concrete slabs to make a walk way for the dental clinic at another slum church. In the city we painted 4 rooms of a dental clinic. Those were the physical projects.

We visit an orphanage and did arts and crafts with them. Gee, when you think of kids in the orphanages you feel kind of bad,usually. Man... any kid in an orphanage is considered lucky in my eyes. It's somewhat clean, they get fed and clothed, loving attention and an education. Compared with the kids in the slums. I really think the slums are as close to being in HELL that I would want to be. I won't describe it too much because I don't have the time right now but I'll describe it in my reflection blog later.

Yesterday, we visited a halfway house for children waiting for the mothers that are jail. We held and fed snot nose babies. Again, clean surroundings care and loved. Some of the circumstances are heartbreaking. There was this one little girl that was there, because her father raped her when she was 3 months old. She had to have surgery to stitch up her wounds. Her father went to jail. Sick, just sick.

I was holding a baby named Jeff. The caretakers thought he might be depressed. I held him for a long time, even making him smile. But what do you know, he felt so comfortable he peed all over me. :(

It was pretty cool going to a slum school and feeding the kids. We fed around 300 kids for lunch one day maze and beans. They did a program for us singing, dancing, and a skit. We felt like rock starts afterwards all the kids swarming us trying to shake our hands. I stood up on a bench so I could shake hands with more of them. Kevin and Dan started to jump up and down and had the kids do it too. It was kind of chaotic and crazy. I'll have to show you the video later on the blog. I plan to do my own reflection blog page later.

Praise God! 12 more people stepped over the line! We went to a church in the slums, this was deep in the slums. Our intentions were to show the Jesus film but Mike forgot the speaker for the projector. There were 200 people jammed into this shack of a church. We had to squeeze through a maze of alleys of tin shacks with open sewers. Trying to being careful not to slip and fall into the muck! The people in the church were worshiping in Swahili for a longtime waiting for the Jesus film. When Pastor Mike decided not to show the film, we just winged it. Doing a short messages, then introducing our team. We all said our names and something about ourselves. When I got up I yelled, "GOD IS GOOD!" The crowd would reply, "ALL THE TIME! Again, GOD IS GOOD!" The crowd would repeat, "ALL THE TIME!" Did that a couple of times. I yelled "Jesus Loves You!" With both hands in the air. I took off my camera and held it in the air and shouted," I'm taking pictures to show the world to help bring back missionaries to help you and share the LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST! They cheer! After everyone shared Jo Ann gave her testimony and then Kevin did an Alter call. 12 people came up and were saved! Praise God!

We then feed the crowd rice, beans and some kind of meat. Basically it was chili and rice. It was some party! A party in the slums and everyone loved us! By the time it was time to go it was dark. It was different walking through the dark alleys, we had a little sense of security because most of the people knew we were there to help them.