Overwhelmed with Emotion...

Hey Everyone!!

Sorry for not being able to update sooner, but I have a good excuse for it!! Haha...Saturday's are when I usually go into town and go to the internet cafe but this past weekend I got to hang out with some precious children that I will tell you about in this post.

I do have to affirm that God is doing so much over here, not only in these kids lives, but also mine too! Each week that I am here I become more blown away of who God is!

Ok well to start giving you an update on the past week, I am going to summarize some things because it's too much to post. Plus you know more of the details of how Camp Life is run from my last post.

Week 7.

Same group of girls from last year!! I got 8 out of 14 girls this time around. Some of them changed to government schools and some have "shifted", as Zambians will put it. Anyways, it was a great week!! I had 8 of the same girls and then 3 other girls. One of them was Margret (she was actually in my Mom's group last year, so it was fun being able to pour into her like Mom did). All of the girls looked so good!! And when I say good I mean...healthy (full and fatter - this is a good thing in Zambia), full of life and joy! They all had smiles on their faces which brought such joy to my heart! They all deserve to be in that place! One thing I loved was seeing how much they have grown physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually! They are still young, but that doesn't mean God hasn't moved in their lives. My favorite things from that week was that I got to lead 8 out of 10 girls to Christ! Praise the Lord for opening up opportunities and the hearts of these girls. Keep praying that they will gain more and more understanding of who God is and that they will remember that "The Lord is their Shepherd!"

Meeting Maggie.

I met Maggie Phiri on Thursday during week 7. While we were walking around the community sharing the gospel in Kamanga Community, I noticed this little orphan girl who decided to follow us around. (On a side note...my girls where amazing at sharing the gospel through the evangecube. They were fearless and so bold!) Maggie's appearance was the first thing that caught my eye. She was so rail thin, her dress was so dirty, and old and then lastly I noticed the desperation in her eyes! Here in Zambia you can see so much of a child through their eyes. And Maggie was the child that God wanted me to noticed and find that day! As I was walking around with my girls and partner, I stopped and got down on Maggie's level and started talking to her. She was hesitant and not sure how to react to someone actually "noticing" her. I then scooped her up and carried her around with us the rest of the day! She began smiling and laughing like a normal child should. At the end of the day, I knew that I needed to see her again so after talking with some peopled I scheduled to meet her on Saturday. After leaving her on Thursday, I knew God had something planned for this girl and I couldn't wait to see what it was!!

Saturday (July 26)...favorite day so far!

I woke up with so much excitement about seeing my little Maggie again. I had made plans with Holly and my friend Stephanie to go pick up Maggie and a few other girls and head to get ice cream. Once we finally got on the road, we picked up Stephanie's girl first, who's name is Beauty, then headed to Kamanga where Maggie lives. I wasn't sure if we were going to find her because we had planned to get there at 1:30pm and it was 11:30am. By the Lord's direction, we were heading down to the "grounds" where the kids were playing sports. And as I saw so many of my kids running up to me with their Camp Life shirts on and green fleece jackets, I saw in the crowd the precious face of Maggie with the biggest smile just waiting to be picked up! As soon as I got to her, I swung her around and just held her. We stayed at Kamanga for a little bit to hang out with the kids and give them "sweets" (it's actually tootsie rolls)! Once we finally made it back to the van, instead of having 3 kids, we ended up with 7!! I mean how can you resist children who just melt you heart?

After getting situated in the van, we gave the kids a banana, bread, maheu (an drink that only zambian's love!) and an orange. We headed to Manda Hill, which is a market place in Lusaka. Our surprise for the kids was to take them to get ice cream, but the Lord wanted to surprise them with so much more!! When we got to the place, we got ice cream, chips (fries), and water. There was a big jumping castle that the kids have never seen or played on before so all of them enjoyed doing that!

Maggie (10 yrs old), her brother Peter (12 yrs old) and their little cousin Susan (6 yrs old) were there. Maggie and Susan both didn't have shoes so I gave them a little surprise...I asked Paul, one of my favorite Zambians here, if I could take them to get new shoes and he was thrilled to be apart of it. So we carried both Maggie and Susan to the shoe store and I bought them socks and tennis shoes. They loved them!! Their smiles just began to get bigger and bigger! After that I had some old t-shirts that were small that I put on them so the only part about their wardrobe was their bottom half...meaning shorts and underwear. Both the girls were wearing dresses that didn't really cover a lot and had old underwear. So with all the kwacha (currency in Zambia) I had left, I got them a new pair of pink underwear, jeans for maggie and shorts for Susan. Stephanie and I took them into the bathroom and literally wiped them down with wipes to clean them off to place clean clothes on them. As we were doing that, you could see how malnourished these children have gotten. Skin and bones with a bloated belly. The verse that came to my mind as I was in the process of placing new clothes on them was..."the old has gone, and then new has come". After walking them out of the bathroom, I began crying. I finally understood the deep love for these children and how it's worth to give up all that have to see the joy in the eyes of a child.

Something I realized the Lord was saying was...

"Come with all that you have, give all that you can,

and leave with more than you can imagine."

To say the least, that day was incredible!! I know now that the Lord has called me here to take care of His kids!! At the end of the day, my heart was so sad because I had to say good-bye to these precious 3 children I got to love on for the day! After saying bye, I knew I needed to get these kids to Camp Life so how some way...

Week 8.

Before I tell you about this week I wanted to tell you about the number '8'...at church the pastor explained that the number 8 means "new beginnings" and I can already tell you that God had this week ordained for so long...

The night before I got my kids this week, I got news from Holly Scurry (assistant Camp Life director) and she said that I can go get my kids from Kamanga and bring them to the last week of Camp Life. My heart was so full of excitement that it almost came out of my chest!! So on Monday morning I hopped in a van with my friend named Paul to go pick up Maggie, Peter, Susan, Joseph and JR (who are brothers to Susan and cousins to Maggie and Peter). When we arrived at Kamanga, we went straight to their house and as we turned the corner they dropped everything they were doing and ran into my arms! While I was there I met Maggie's Mom. She didn't seem too exctied about where we were taking her kids, but she let us take them.

So I got the girls changed and loaded all 5 of them in the van for Camp Life!! The children were so full of excitement that all they could do is SING all the way there!! haha...and as they were singing, I was PRAISING THE LORD FOR HOW HE WORKED IT OUT FOR ALL 5 OF THESE KIDS TO COME!!

Today...my heart hurts for them!

As the kids got to camp today, I pulled aside Maggie and Susan to find out more of their background. Just to forewarn you, their story is one of the worst I've heard and I have been hurting for them ever since Maggie told me. So to give you the short version...Maggie's mom beats her with a cooking spoon and with a thorn bush. I noticed marks on her body when I gave her new clothes on Saturday, so I wanted to look at them again and that's when my heart dropped. As she turned around to her back side, I lost my breath in what I saw. Her back looked like she was brutally whiped daily. You could see deep wounds, but then even recent ones as well. Some of the wounds are from rashes and scratching, but most of them were from getting beaten. Maggie doesn't got to school because her mom refuses to let her go. Her mother wants Maggie to be a street kid and just live in the streets. Her cousins live right behind a witch doctors house and Peter has been taken by the witch doctor nightly. The last thing I found out about Maggie is that she probably has AIDS. Her size, physical appearance, as well as her symptoms of being sick points to her having that disease.

Maggie is such a precious and joyous child just dying inside to be loved!! Maggie, Peter, Susan, Joseph, and JR all have captured part of my heart and I haven't been the same!! Please, Please pray for protection over each one of them. I am trying to seek discernment and wisdom from the Lord on how to go about this situation.

All my other girls this week are between the ages of 12-15 and are awesome!! They are all from Care for Kids, which is a orphanage that have rescued kids from the most horricfic situations. So when I get to talk with the girls, I will get to see how the Lord has brought them out of the darkest valley and saved them!

This is my last week here so please pray for God to open up new ways for His name to go out. I do feel called here and it's going to be so hard to walk away from all that is here in Zambia!! I miss you all and I'm so thankful for all of your support and prayers!!

Wasting my life for theirs...

Joy