They call me "Lauw-La"

The children here bring me so much joy.  Their excitement and eager spirits brighten my day when I see them, or they see me.  Some of the kids will leave City of Hope to eat lunch at home (sometimes 1-2km).  We are usually walking back from the clinic at this time so all of a sudden I will here "Lauw-la! Lauw-la!" One of the young girls (probably 5-7 years of age) Jacquelyn pronounces my name especially loud and cute.  The swahili language interchanges the R's and L's.  So their English makes me laugh but not as much as my swahili makes them laugh :)

There are a few of us women on our team who decided to do a girl's night with some of the older girls who live in the Children's Home at City of Hope.  Our intention was to encourage the girls as leaders of their fellow classmates and older "sisters" of the other children who live and learn at City of Hope.  We also wanted to talk about true beauty from a biblical worldview, particularly in contrast to their own worldview.  This is actually a topic we've been discussing throughout the summer: worldview influence over cultural outcomes.  We've done two of these nights so far and both went great!  About 8-10 girls come over and we all introduce ourselves.  We share some laughs as we serve them chai and then we start to dig into God's word about truth and beauty.  Before reading a paraphrased Proverbs 31, we ask the girls about beauty.  What does it mean to be beautiful in your culture?  What are certain character traits that make us beautiful women and how does it differ from what the culture tells us?  We, as American girls, we speak about how we also have cultural influences that determine what "beautiful" means though it differs with the biblical perspective of beauty.  At one of the meetings, a girl named Dorkas spoke up about her culture saying, "You are beautiful if you are circumcised".  If you read my last blog post, you'll find that FGM is a common cultural practice here in Ntagacha, and is expected of both males and females who are of a certain age.  It was relieving to hear these girls share their thoughts and recognize ways in which cultural practice conflicted with a godly lifestyle. We read a paraphrased Proverbs 31 to the girls and then have one of them read it in Swahili to make sure they are able to hear and understand what it says.  Then we wash their feet and give them pedicures.  I've gotten pretty good at decorating the nails with little flowers :)  During this time we have the girls pass around a sheet of paper with their name on it so that the girls can write an encouraging word or trait about each other.  At the end of the night, all of us are blessed and encouraged by the time.  Our hope is that the Lord uses this time to communicate His love for each of the girls and help them to understand their beautiful identity in Him.

We are still caring for baby Mwita and he is becoming so strong!  His demeanor has completely changed and now he smiles and giggles.  This weekend we have asked the grandmother to keep him in order to see the progress made on her own in two days.  We will weigh him on Monday.  In the meantime, some of us are going to visit her this afternoon to see how she and the baby are doing.  Perhaps do some teaching and pray with them.  There's so much more to share but others are patiently waiting to use the internet.

Until next time :)

Love,
Laura