Great first day in Korah

I had the opportunity to talk with De and Katie today. They were at a restaurant eating dinner with Zi and it was so loud! 3 of them were eating cheeseburgers and one eating Ethiopian food...guess which one was having Ethiopian food...yep, De the Ethiopian:)

They reported to me that they had a GREAT day today in Korah today. They spent time dancing with the children. The boys worked on moving some rocks and then they all did some painting. Katie said they actually made their own paint! They boiled water and put some black stuff in it, then put some coloring in it and they used it to paint! Crazy, huh?

Katie said that they had kids crawling all over them the entire day, holding onto them, hugging them, kissing them and just generally loving all over them. They LOVED every second!

Katie laughed when she told me that she was inundated with numerous 15 year old boys who kept telling her she was so beautiful, asking her if she was married and holding her hands everywhere she went! Not to be left out, she also said the boys were constantly surrounded by girls telling them how "hand-a-some" they were!

I could hear the joy in her voice and in De's voice about the time spent with these kids, just loving them and being the face of Christ to them.

Just some background on what they are doing...there was some land across the street from the church in Korah rented so that the summer camp could accomodate the 760 kids who were coming. The land needed some improvements and the men of the church have been working on them for the past several weeks and it looks great. Today they were just finishing up these improvements.

Remember Sumer visited Korah and the garbage dump in January? When she saw the horrible condition that so many children were living in there, she found a boarding school in Sheshamane that would take the kids, providing that they could learn how to hold a pencil, learn some English, learn to wash their clothes and learn to make a bed. Given that they have no beds in the dump, only one set of clothes and no where to wash them and no means to learn English or reading or writing, attendance in the summer camp program is required for admittance into the boarding school. The improvements on the new land include some dorm-type rooms with beds and desks for the children to learn the skills necessary for school.

Then if you remember, sweet Sammy opened up the summer camp up to all the kids who they (the church in Korah) has files on (who have or need sponsorship to attend school there in Korah...see hopemongers.com). This is what brought the number of summer camp attendees to over 750 kids!

So that begins tomorrow. I'm sure the anticipation is very high among the children and the workers! Will you pray with me for the kids and workers? Pray that the Lord would show up in the faces, voices and loving hands of the workers. Pray that the kids would know and see the love that they so rarely see from outsiders. And that they would KNOW that there is a God in heaven who loves and adores them and thinks they are precious.

Look at those faces in the picture above (that we took in Feb). Is there any question that they are precious in His sight?

Gorgeous kids!

Blessings,
Laura