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Processing Monday…

This is Christy…

Today has been a hard day. It is one of those “how can this be” days. Our day started at Mapalo school where we got to see the new bathroom facilities..oh how we take for granted our toilets!! We got to see a little of how Zambia works…if you do not develop on your land, someone else will!! 🙂 Yes, someone has built a building on Wiphan’s land. We got to see the slab where a kitchen will be when we raise enough funds. Currently, they cook outside on coal and when it is raining, they cook in what should be a classroom. Here I am with some of the sweet kids on the kitchen slab. Maybe the next time I am here there will be a stove where I am standing instead.

Then we had our hearts absolutely ripped out of our chests. A girl, age 5, not much older than my daughter, is hanging around us. We are curious about each child, so we ask our girls counselor, Paster Alice, to translate and ask this girl her name. Her name is Mumi. Mumi has this gigantic bump on her forehead. It has a spiral shape that at first glance makes you think she has ring worm. It is a little green around the edges. We ask what happened to her….and we get this….my father hit me in the head with a chair. WHAT?????? How can this be? The ring worm looking shape on her head is the shape of the bottom of a chair. This is just one story of our day. We can’t even process this yet, but of course is one of the many reasons why we are here. We found out that this abuse is happening during the day while her mom is at work and her older brother is at school. While Wiphan’s main focus is to reach orphans, girls like Mumi are what we call vulnerable children who we would also let into Wiphan’s school. We hope to have Mumi in Wiphan school at the beginning of the year. While we can’t stop this from happening, we can provide her a place to go during the day so hopefully this will not happen as much.

We painfully left the area with some instructions for our counselor to find out more information and went into the Mapalo compound to visit some of our widow’s homes. This is a great honor for them. They literally start lining up hoping to have you come visit their homes. Here is a picture of a sweet widow that we visited. This is one of her grandchildren that she helps to care for.

At Sinia school, some of the group was doing a sports camp with the sweet kids, which they will continue this week as we are doing our conference tomorrow–which we are now learning needs to be so much about what God says about them, how much He loves them and how despite any problems they face–He has a beautiful plan for their future.

I am sure there are going to be many more hard stories tomorrow. We are still processing today! Please pray for us as we pour our hearts into the children tomorrow. So many of them are in and have been in hard places and we just want to give them hope!

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Dawn - July 18, 2011 - 7:17 pm

My heart is broken……because no child deserves to be hurt….in any way. PRAYING for you all as you pour CHRIST into everyone there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sandi - July 19, 2011 - 1:03 am

Praying for protection and health for all of you & your families. Praying that God will just blanket that community with love and healing and provide for all of their needs. Praying that he will act as a shield against such abuse. It just tears me to pieces to hear that any child is being hurt. We will be praying that it is not a skull fracture and for miraculous healing.