An Orphan Heart

"I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you."

John 14:18

This week during devotion we have been talking about the orphan heart and how that relates to the people we are working with but also to each one of us. When most people (including myself) think of what it means to be an orphan, the answer is usually something like "someone who has no parents." After spending the past 3 nights learning more about the orphan heart my definition and mindset has changed. The orphan heart is in everyone because we are all fallen people. It is a fallen human heart and my heart needs to be healed just as much as these children's hearts need to be healed. We learned a lot about the characteristics of an orphan heart and it has been very helpful in trying to understand the children's actions, feelings, and backgrounds. It has also brought to light the characteristics I have in my heart, I pray for God to work in my heart with these struggles. I also pray for our team as we continue to spend time and minister to the children. Our mission is to work with these children who are fatherless and vulnerable and who need to know the love of the Heavenly Father. My prayer is that we continue to show the Father's love each and every day through our actions and words.

Yesterday, the team from Tennessee came with us to the land, all planned to do a VBS with the children. When we pulled up to the land...there were no children. We had prepared for this because you never know if things will actually go as planned. So instead of doing the VBS, we showed the team around the land and got to see the progress that has been made on the ground breaking/construction preparation for the first structure on the land- a caretaker's home. 

Ground is broken!

Making progress!

After we showed the team around the land, we decided to set out and do a little exploring. We are still trying to get our bearings of where everything is out there and we figured that with a larger group we might could get some of this accomplished. We walked around for a while and ended up having a group of school children follow us. (The children were sent home because their schools fees had not been paid) We continued walking with the children and decided to stop and spend some time playing with them. We all had so much fun!

We ate lunch then were headed out to do some more exploring when the team's bus hit a pot hole and a rock got wedged in the bumper. Everyone got out of the bus to try and figure out what to do about it...which ended up with the guys pushing the bus. This was the first of a few more adventures with the bus for the day! It broke down a few more times but thankfully we all made it safely home!

Push!

We stopped by the school near the land before heading back to Gulu. It was lunch time so many of the children came and played with us. Anna and I spent most of our time singing and dancing with some of the children and got a definite workout! Dancing and jumping for about 30 minutes straight but SO much fun!!

We went to Kasubi Central this morning and we are all looking forward to attending the music festival in town on Friday to see "our" students compete against other primary schools! Each primary school will have around 50 students competing in several different categories to win the title and move onto the next step pf competition against the winners of other regions. They will compete in singing, dancing, speech, drama, and music. We are all planning to attend Friday morning to support them then spend the afternoon in town. 

That's life for us here in Gulu!