Here's our whole team in our "Sunday Best," about to leave for church. The children were so proud to wear their donated outfits! Some of them had never worn brand new clothing before. Some even kept the tags on the clothes until they fell off ;).
Our team was very diverse when it came to our abilities, passions, and reasons for coming on the trip. Several people were able to tell some of the children that they would be adopting them (we now have SEVEN families who have started the adoption process through Jonathan's House, with at least ELEVEN children being adopted in total!!!!!), one spoke fluent French and helped us communicate with the children and staff, one led a class about caring for people who have experienced trauma, some helped work on a new water system for the orphanage, two were there to create a short film to promote the orphanage and CAR as a whole, and I was able to have counseling sessions with each of the children and staff members! It was a great trip.
One day we had "Christmas in July," and gave all of the children backpacks full of donated gifts from their sponsors. We wanted to show all of the children just how loved they are by their sponsor families! I got to tell Sacre Coeur (pictured above) that I am his sponsor and gave him a picture of me to keep.
God laid it on my heart about a month ago to lead a devotional on John 13, when Jesus washed the disciples' feet. We were able to follow Jesus' call by washing the feet of every child and staff member at the orphanage. This was an incredibly humbling and precious moment for our team.
I was able to reconnect with Modeste, who is a disabled man I met for the first time last August. He continues to repair bicycles at a shop in the community. A couple of teammates and I were very passionate about advocating for his continued work in the community, as this is uncommon among the disabled in the Majority World (unemployment among the disabled is as high as 85% in developing countries). Ultimately, we would love to empower the local church to take charge of advocating for this man, so please be praying about this.
Our team was also able to provide worms medicine and bread to over 1,000 children in the community of Sibut. Not only were the children given medicine and bread, but they were given the opportunity to accept Jesus into their heart - some for the first time. This was a chaotic, yet incredible experience for our team members.
Thank you all so much for your prayers leading up to this trip and for your prayers while we were over in CAR.
