The Hearts of the Kids.

The hearts of our kids have been growing in Christ so much and their desire to reach out to the poor is crazy! Orphans reaching out to broken communities! God's work has been amazing in the last year! The kids have been on break from school and one of the activities they did was to visit a very poor village. The councilman gave the kids a tour and showed us what the needs of that community were. There was no running water in the village, and the water truck came while we were here for the families to do the daily water collection. Disease was rampant and kids ran the streets everywhere, but had little food. The homes were small rickety structures that barely stood on their own.
It was a great experience for our teenagers to get a reality check and a perspective check on their lives. And to realize how much they do have at the orphanage. This was a "vision visit", and many of our teenagers were able to think of some things that they could do to help the community. The plan is to come back fairly regularly to help with different things.

Easter has been really meaningful this year for me. I have been away from all the usual services and rituals, but I was at the orphanage on Good Friday and the kids had a time of carrying a big cross, remembering different stages of what Christ went through as he carried it along to his death. Somehow it was just extra meaningful to me, as I feel like I have to carry a heavy load in my life at this time. It was encouraging to me.

Now I am back in NYC for break from the "front lines".