3 days of encouragement and joy in Jangwani...

Hello everyone...Its been such a busy week, and I'm beat, but God is so, so good. I have spent the last 3 days in Jangwani spending as much time as possible with the children. What an incredible, incredible blessing it is to be around such children - I just love them, and can't get enough of them.

Monday I spent all day in Jangwani with the teachers, children, Consolata and Pastor Isaiah. It was a real joy to see what the kids had learned and just to have the chance to play with them and see all of the progress made - including 2 new classrooms (5 total now), a new office and a new kitchen area. In the evening I had a meeting with Pastor Bob (my representative on the management committee), Muema, and Bukachi (the LIA Deputy Country Director).

The next day I went in early to spend time with the children, then we had a 7 hour meeting with the management committee to hear reports, then discuss going forward - a bit wearing to say the least, but it was a good time of assessment and looking forward.

Today was definitely one of the highlight days for me, and I am getting a knot in my chest and teary eyed as I sit here typing about it. It was closing day for the school - so there was an end year program for the school and all of the parents were invited. Anne, my Kenyan mother joined me in Jangwani to see the project for the first time and was so excited about it. The kids were presented with their grades for the year, and the top ones in the class received a small gift. Each child recieved a piece of candy and their own personal photograph (which I had taken of each child in May.) They were so excited about it. I sat in that program in awe of what had happened in the past year.

Pastor Isaiah asked me to give a brief speech. As I stood up and began speaking to the parents, I looked down at the children and looked into their eyes, and at their smiles and was thinking to myself what an incredible amount of potential there is in these children. What an incredible amount of hope there is because of each of these children. It was just a beautiful scene. I was looking out at the parents then and saw pride - as each child received their end year marks, the parents were so proud. I saw wide smiles on the parents' faces as I spoke - I have been accepted. After the program was over, the kids were hugging me and wanting me to take their picture - a smaller group of kids stayed for an hour after school was over. I swung them around on my arms, they sat on my knee and we made funny faces at each other. It was very hard to leave Jangwani today - I will be back next week, but the kids are out of school now and I won't see them until next year.

One other thing that I was able to see briefly was a particular aspect of the homebased care program. Those in the homebased care program have taken the initiative to start making beautiful floor mats and jewelry (which I will be bringing home to sell to help them out). It has been a very neat aspect of the project. I am looking forward to seeing what happens through this.

I am so happy, encouraged, extatic - put in any positive word you want. I am so blessed to be involved with this project. I am so blessed to have the opportunity to raise the funds and awareness about this project - to enable others to know about these remarkable children. Praise be to Jesus Christ, who is the author and perfector of all things good!