Out in the community

We are family!  The ties that bind us.

 

The orphanage reaches out into the surrounding community.  Pastor Pooshani has set up a number of community bible cells, with the orphans leading bible lessons and discussion with children and adults in the area.  Visiting short-term missionaries to the orphanage can choose to go with the orphans to the homes.

I love these, and I did last time. 

Why? You get a sense of the living conditions, the faith, the hope, the beauty, the friendliness - "One" by U2.

This cell is taught by Helen, who is an S3 student (junior) at Nehemiah Secondary School.  Helen is special to me, and we had a fun time the 2 times we went there.  Some of the women remembered me from last year. 

They were talking Arabic and laughing the first week we went.  When I asked her what was funny, she said "I told them you were greeting the baby chicks!"  Well, we were off and running.  The following week, you guessed it, I made sure to say "Hi" to each of the 4 baby chicks.  The women told me that they might name one after me and, who knows, maybe it will even be alive when I come next year!

The blind woman in white spoke to Chris, which Helen translated into Arabic, saying, "Tell your family and friends a blind woman from the South Sudan says 'Hi!'.

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"Kwaja! Kwaja! Kwaja! Kwaja!"

 

 

Peace (P4 or Primary 4th grade), John (S3), and Jellis (P5) took Chris and I with them to a Friday community bible cell about 1-1.5 miles away from the orphanage compound.  Two times, little kids maybe 2-3 years old in the community saw us coming on the road and screamed "kwaja! kwaja! kwaja! kwaja!", which is Arabic for "white man".  It was a great laugh.

John, who aspires to a life in Public Administration, is an impressive young man.  During a school break, he went to the Terekeka orphanage to help build school rooms.  On Fridays after school, he teaches up to 52 kids in a tukul about Jesus, the Pharisee and the tax collector, as well as other lessons.

The walk included a stretch through a fantastic vibrant neighborhood - filled with kids playing football (our soccer), women and children getting water from the community well and carrying it on their heads, and women cooking outside - as well as walking on narrow paths in the bush country.  Several times I told the girls I was lost, which I was, but that I thought the path right there would take us to America.  We shared a laugh. A great time.

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This is another community cell I was able to visit again this year, with Nunas on the far left and Moses, Nunas's brother, on the far right.  Moses, a P6 student, taught the lesson.

Moses and Nunas's grandpa and I remembered each other and made a nice connection.

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A family attending yet another bible cell.  This cell is just down the road from the orphanage. Below grandma and grandchild from this community group.