Our last two days of ministry

Yesterday and today were our last two days of ministry and we spent them with kids a good part of each day. We visited Sudanese pre-schools and just played and had so much fun. The team I was with had balloons that we blew up and two beach balls as well! They just loved the balloons and balls flying around the room! They yelled and clapped every time a balloon popped! They thought it was the funniest thing ever. Kelby was a human bed for a couple kids. It only took them a few moments before they fell asleep on him (it was so cute). We brought coloring pages and crayons for the kids which was fun for a while, but they were bored and moved on to something else quickly. We had mini footballs and a mini basketball which was a hit. The greatest joy was the bubbles! Risa brought out the bubbles and they went NUTS! All they wanted to do was scream and pop the bubbles. I heard the other team got into some chicken-fights which sounds like a blast. After three hours with the kids we had lunch then returned to the area to make home visits. Some of the home visits were the parents of the kids in the school.

The first home we went to was heartbreaking. Risa & I visited a Sudanese refugee mother of seven. Her husband was back in Sudan (since April) because of a sick relative and is not sure if he will make it back to Egypt. She doesn't have a job and was feeling really discouraged and helpless. I shared my favorite verses Jer. 29:11-13 with her and told her of my struggles. Risa shared about her struggles- being sick and almost missing this trip. We prayed for her and her family and she was very emotional. We thanked her for the visit and gave her a bag of food. We asked her to take a picture with us so we will remember to continue to pray for her. I shook her hand and she had tears flowing from her eyes. I reached out to hug her and for about two minutes we just hugged! She needed to hear something we said and I just hope she is hopeful and is encouraged by our visit! There were two more visits after that and then off to dinner!

We ate at Macaroni Grill (in a HUGE mall somewhere). I was so stuffed from lunch though, that I ordered dessert instead (cheesecake) and still didn't finish it!

Today we finally got to go to an orphanage! Unfortunately it seemed like we were there for very long... I met a 3 or 4yr old girl, Kristine. We found ourselves drawn to one another. Even though there was a language barrier (and no translator) we managed to play with an EFCC beach ball and color just after I got her to eat an ice cream cone. I'll have to get pictures on here soon of that! We were supposed to go to a mosque, but team MN (who visited yesterday at the mosque) left some Bibles and tracts there and we weren't allowed to go. We visited the Cave Church which is awesome! Pictures to come soon... this church is literally caved out of the side of a mountain! After that we walked down into one of eight "Garbage Cities" and had a prayer walk. I've never seen anything like what I saw there... piles and piles of garbage, sorted by type, littered the street! People were living in makeshift homes (buildings where they were sorting the trash). The smell was terrible and so were the flies. It just amazes me that people can "make a living" like that and it made me sad to experience it in person! All my senses were touched!

Tonight is a chill night... we have a long day tomorrow- filled with sightseeing and finish it up with a party for the all the teams included in this ministry trip.

-Tiffany