Well, apparently uploading photos in Africa is not that easy…so when we get home, I will upload all of our new photos!

Today, we walked through the townships–Tokyo Sexwale and Ocean View…we went to the places that the children from Ithemba live.  This is something that I have done more times than I can count.  Slopping through the muddied streets, dodging broken beer bottles and rotting food…seeing children struggling to survive.  I have seen it a million times but it NEVER gets easier.  Seeing injustice like we saw today is impossible to swallow.

These kids literally live in  filth and have to fight for their innocents but they are the most joyful people that I have ever seen. As we walked through the community, hundreds of children were chasing after us laughing, jumping, singing…how convicting.  They have nothing worldly, nothing that we consider comfortable yet they are so full of life and so thankful for all of the little blessings…I look at my own life, my comfortable house, my air conditioned car, my new clothes…all of the many many blessings that Jesus has given me…We are so blessed to live where we live and to have the resources that we have.  We have the ability to change lives because of where God has placed us in life.  He has put us in the unique position to influence and to give…to see the needs of these children and continue to give and love with everything that I have. Walking through the township always rocks me to the core and leaves me feeling more motivated than ever to accomplish our dreams for J’Bay.  I want to fight for these children that are not able to fight for themselves and I want to give them the hope that only Jesus can give.

We are back in Africa with another wonderful group of friends–this group represents the people who purchased canvases at Orange ‘09 to help build the safe house! We have had so much fun getting to know them and they have been hard at work in the safe house and with the kids. Today we had so much fun playing with bubbles! Norma and Kelly, two lovely ladies from Michigan brought 200 mini packs of bubbles and the kids had a BLAST this morning. One of my favorite moments was sitting and watching Tulani, an adorable three year old boy try to blow the bubbles. He would dip his wand, concentrate REALLY hard, then blow spit ALL over the place! He tried and tried and tired and then finally, he held the wand at just the right direction and blew just hard enough that bubbles started flowing everywhere!!! He started jumping up and down, laughing and screaming with excitement. It is so amazing to me how such a little thing like bubbles can bring so much joy to a child…it was a little reminder that every little thing that we can do to help these kids makes a difference. A smile, a pack of bubbles, a PBJ, a new pair of shoes…doing just a little bit goes a long way! This afternoon we are playing red light, green light and hot potato…II will post pictures of that and our bubble adventures later