Wednesday Update

Hello everyone,

Since yesterdays email was sent before supper I will tell you what happened. As you already know, it was Anthony's birthday yesterday. We ordered pizza for supper. We did not do a very good job of calculating how much so we have a little leftover. But that is okay. When we were done with supper, a few of us went into Robyn's room and got the presents and card we made for Anthony. We came out singing happy birthday. We made him a card with a few drawings of African animals. They were very good. And on the back we put 31 reasons why we love Anthony. Robyn did 15 and the team did 16. The 8 kids were up till about 12:00 working on it. The presents that we got him were little things that we had brought him. But the best gift was a volleyball that we all signed. We gave him the volleyball because he had told Adam and I that he use to play nationally. We had a cake that his wife had ordered. Since they had ordered the cake, we had a bunch of cupcakes to be eaten. A little while ago Anthony forgot to tell Robyn that it was his wife's birthday and so we used the cupcakes to celebrate Agnes's birthday. So is was a really good night.

Today when we woke-up, we met Dawn. She is with "the least of these" ministries. We headed out around 9:00. We headed for Huruma with the intention of the nurses going to Bridges. Bridges is closer to Robyn's house than Huruma. Robyn still had to haul people to Huruma and then come back. Anthony had to haul the water filters in his vehicle. So the plan was that Robyn would carry 4 people who were not going to Bridges so far. Then she would drop them off. This would be about 1/2-3/4 mile away from Huruma. Then We would give the water filters to her so that she could take them to Bridges. Anthony would drive his vehicle to Huruma and drop off the people in his vehicle. Then he would go back for the rest. Well, Anthony thought that he was supposed to wait at the point where it breaks off to go to Bridges. We are sitting there a while and we get a call from Robyn and she is still back at the road to Huruma. So Anthony and I put the water filters back in the truck and took them to Bridges ourselves. After that we headed for Huruma and saw Robyn. At that point, Robyn, Dawn, Rhea, Lesley, and Earl headed for Bridges and the rest of us went to Huruma. When we got to Huruma we had the mind set that we were going to play with the kids. So we dressed accordingly. They asked us if we would paint again but we said we were not dressed for it. So they said that it was okay and we could go play with the kids.

After playing with the kids for a while we put on another performance. We did some songs and then asked the kids to sing us a song. This was amazing. Over 150 kids all singing at the same time was amazing. We then did the puppets again and the kids loved it. Then we told them a story but this time we just acted it out for the kids. I was Jonah, Adam was God, Maddie was the king, Kirsten and Faith were the sailors, Natalie and Maddie were waves, and Kelli and Allison were whales. The kids just loved what we were doing. Finally, we passed out some bookmarks that the kids could write on and put stickers.

Time for lunch. We had mango, cabbage, rice, and lentiles. After lunch 9 of us started walking back to the road where Robyn dropped some of the people off to walk this morning. Anthony, Jade, and kelli stayed back. We passed Robyn on the way and then her and Anthony caught back up to us. We all came home.

When we got home, the people who went to Bridges started to eat leftovers. This was because they did not get a chance to eat any lunch there. They just ate pizza from last night. We then went to Andy's. It is a market with 4 people who sell stuff. So it is completely different than the market we went to yesterday. There we bought some souvenirs. Then we went to the Java house. We then came home and relaxed until supper.

At supper we met Whitney and Christina. Both go to Asbury College. Whitney is here until August and Christina leaves tomorrow. We had baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and ice cream.

That is pretty much what happened today. I want to thank everyone at home for their prayers. We appreciate all of them. We love you all and hope that you are well.

Brian

PS from Rhea:

Lesley, Earl and I went with Robyn today to Brydges Home to assist her with physical exams of the children there. There were approximately 24 children who were sitting in chairs waiting to be seen by Robyn. We were able to see 21 of the 24 child who was waiting. Each child was weighed and their Blood pressure was taken and then Robyn took them into another room and took their complaints and examined them accordingly. She saw everything from Gingivitis to Strep throat to suspected HIV positive status, these were children with swollen lymph nodes and vague complaints. Either Lesley or Rhea were in the room with Robyn recording the information for her as she saw each child and the other one was filling the prescriptions that Robyn wrote. Earl put together the water filters that we brought for the home and then he recorded for each child that was seen the new information as the prescriptions were filled so that the home would have a list of the medications and when they would be given. It was truly amazing to watch Robyn in action. God has Truly blessed her with a gift of medicine and of decernment to see to the true need. Even though these kids had to be truly hurting, they made no complaint whatsoever. A huge prayer request for these kids is the need for food. Last week they went to bed hungry and most of the children we saw today had lost weight since their last check up. They were really concerned about a 2 year old named Elizabeth who had lost 6 1/2 lbs. If I could I would bring her home in a heartbeat. We were there for 2 1/2 hours and did not stop the entire time. Before we left they wanted to feed us lunch but there was no way that we were going to take any of their food. We told them Thank you but please use the food for the children. It was very humbling to have them wanting to entertain us when their needs were so great. Especially for Lesley and I this was an awsome experience to work with Robyn in this capacity.