Hospital Visits

 

Everyday, there was morning devotionals for the nurses and doctors in the chapel at 7am. We would go everyday. They would sing a few songs (beautiful!--I've never heard singing like theirs), and then someone would bring a short encouraging word. It would last no longer than 15 minutes. Then on Fridays, instead of meeting in the chapel, they would go as a group to the different wards in the hospital and sing songs to the people there. It was so encouraging to see the looks of peace on the people's faces as they lay in their hospital beds. 

 This sign was in the pediatric ward in the hospital. I thought it was very powerful, so I snapped a pic of it.

Everytime we visited the hospital, we took "gifts" with us. I call them "gifts" because to us, it's just a balloon or an M&M we can get anywhere. But to these people, it means so much more.

We would write "Jesu Anoda"--which means Jesus Loves You in the Shona language. Then we would draw a smiley face on it. We gave every child a balloon, and sometimes a parent too. The parents would sit and bounce the balloon back and forth with their child and just laugh and laugh.

 

This little girl was awaiting surgery when she got this balloon. The mother was very, very happy. When I walked into the room, both look depressed and quiet. Once she received the balloon, you could feel the whole atmosphere in the room change. It was so amazing!

 Garrison Myers personally took care of this boy day in and day out. This little boy named Tenashi had grabbed ahold of a live high-line wire. It had burned him so badly, Dr. Sheets had to amputate his left arm. Garrison was there for the entire experience. He became very good friends with this little boy, even though neither spoke each other's languages. That's what is so amazing about a smile--it crosses all language barriers! Garrison is now in the process of working with the doctors and a specialized place in Africa that makes prosthetics. He, along with his parents Therman and Rhonda Myers, are trying to make a way to financial support Tenashi so he can get a prosthetic arm. How amazing is that!!!

Pedicures!!

Us girls decided it would be a really fun thing to do a pedicure party for the women and missionaries of Karanda. We hand-made invitations and personally delivered them to several women in the village.

We served hot tea and cookies for the women who were waiting to get a pedicure.

 

Most of the women did not understand what a pedicure was, or even understand why we were doing that. We tried to explain it to them by telling them it was something women did in the states to "pamper" themselves--to make them feel good.

We also told them it was something to make them feel special and pretty--that most women got a pedicure before getting married or going on a nice date.

After explaining it to them, they totally understood!


Something very funny happened once they understood--they asked if they could get their hands painted too! So, not only did every women get a pedicure, but a MANICURE too!!

 We tried our hardest to do it just like a nail salon--with the lotion and the massage and then painting. It was so enjoyable to see how much these women (including the missionaries) loved it!

We had about 25-30 women show up for the pedicure party. It was a full house! And there were only 5 of us doing pedis--so we were trying to go as fast as possible, while still doing a good job for the women.

These 3 women were worship leaders at the church in Karanda. They were the most beautiful and sweet spirit women I've ever met.

Several women wanted to take pics of their feet once we were finished. I took this picture, and they were looking at it laughing and "ooowww"ing and "awwww"ing. The missionary said, "Bet you can't guess which foot mine is!!"

After about 4 hours of hard work (literally, that was soooo exhausting!), we decided to do each other's feet. We all deserved a good pampering!

This is me and Gini Sheets after we finished cleaning up for the night. It was a GREAT night--we really connected with several women of the village. It was a wonderful way to meet them and show them we were there to serve and love them.

Church

Today was church day--Sunday!
The guys of the group--

 The lovely ladies of the group, fixing to head to church for the first time!

Church was absolutely phenomenal! One thing I will never be able to forget is the amazing singing
voices these people have. WOW! They can hit every single octave of any note of any song--it was so beautiful. I truly believe the voices in Heaven will sound something like that. Then, after church (THIS WAS SO COOL), they filed out single file. And as you filed out, you shook the hands of the people who had filed out before you. So ultimately, you would shake every single person's hand that attended church that day. And they sang as the people filed out shaking hands and getting in line. It was sooooooo fun!!

This was the singing group practicing in the church for the next Sunday. They were dancing and singing. Their hands are not lifted up stationary--they are swinging their arms and hips and feet to the rhythm of the song :)

Orphans 2

After we passed out clothes and shoes and other gifts to the orphans, we took them outside and served them a plate of food.

In Africa, most of the meals consist of very little meat. They eat what is called "sadsa."The best way I can describe sadsa to you is take cream of wheat or malt-o-meal. Mix it with very little water until it's almost a paste. Then eat it with your fingers. Sadsa has no flavor except for it tastes floury and grainy, and has no nutritional value. That's why you see so many kids dying from malnutrition. Some children only get sadsa to eat everyday. It expands in their stomachs and makes them feel full. It also costs very little to make a very large batch.

The man below in the blue shirt and pants is the man who heads up the orphans. He works with these children to show and tell them about Jesus, and he organizes for the children to come to Karanda when there is a missions group who has brought gifts for the orphans. His name is James. He is one of my favorite people I have ever met. I will never forget his love for these kids or his passion and zeal to serve the Lord. 

I got to serve the children by washing their hands
before they were served their food. They were amazingly gracious and respectful. It blew me away to realize how "respect" is something that does not have to be taught to these kids. It's engraved in them. It has to be--these children are orphans--they do not have parents who tell or show them how to show respect. But, they are fully aware of how to show it, give it, and receive it.

Some of the nurses from the hospital came out and helped serve the food to the orphans. The building behind them is where the food was cooked. It's just a brick building with a large firehole in the middle for many pots to fit on. It was very, very hot in there!

Here is inside the open brick building where they cooked the food for the orphan children.
The big pot the man is stirring is the sadsa.

The big white stuff is sadsa. They gave generous portions of that stuff!! They also served greens. And since we had the money to do so, the orphans also got meat! It was a blessing.

Lots of games and fun!!

Orphans

We had the amazing opportunity to give away suitcases full of clothes, shoes, candy and balloons to over 300 orphans. In the Karanda area, we were told there were around 1700 orphans. It's a very, very sad realization when you actually see these beautiful children and know that their only belongings will be what we give them.

My heart went out to these children. I played with them outside, and sometimes you could barely play with them--why? Because they just wanted to touch you. They would grab your legs and arms and hang on you and tackle you. They could feel your love for them, and they wanted all they could get.

Here is a child who had an old Muleshoe shirt from previous years when the Sheets passed out clothes. It was very cool to see how well these kids take care of their belongings. It's everything to them.
When they received their new set of clothes from us, they hugged them tight like they just got $1 million dollars that they were trying to protect. Then the next minute, you would look up and they would be putting on their new clothes on top of their old clothes. They were so proud of have something new to wear.

Their smiles and laughs warmed my heart so much.

We used their church building to hand out the clothes to the orphan children.
We sang songs with them, danced with them, played games with them, and laughed and laughed. We also got to do a funny skit for the children and perform a Human Video (a drama to music) for the children.

Above, I've posted more orphan pics--
beautiful children--
I miss them.