Praise and Prayers!

Hi! What a busy and crazy week. We have so much to be thankful for here, and still so much to pray for. Good thing God loves hearing us talk to Him! James 5:13 (you can check it out yourself, because I don't have my Bible with me right now) says that if any of us are sick we should pray and if anybody who has reason to be thankful they should sing praises to the Lord. (once again...look it up, but you get the point) This verse is the theme of this home and especially of this week.

First of all please pray for my good friend Doreen. She is a 23 years old and is a teacher here. She has been my saving grace as far as learning how to lead my own class and we have become good friends. But the past couple of days she has been really sick. She is an epileptic, and her seizures have been getting worse and more frequent. Please pray for healing.

Also, please pray for Cassidy. It was such a blessing having her here with us, but yesterday we had to say goodbye to her. She'll be arriving tomorrow morning in Calgary so continue to pray for her safe travels. Ps. Don't let her tell you all the cool stories on us.

Another prayer request, is for Zipporah. She is one of the girls here at the home who is involved with Gospel Dancers, Acrobats and scouts. She was given an opportunity to come to Canada for a scouts camp but as would be expected it's really hard to get the permission and proper id for an orphan child. So please pray that she gets her papers before the end of June, which would be when she flies out, so that she can take advantage of this awesome opportunity.

Exciting news for the home is that the vice-president of Kenya has informed Mama that he is coming to visit the home on Sunday so we have been busy cleaning and preparing for his arrival. This is such an honor and I haven't heard one kid complain about all the work that they've had to do, all they talk about is how excited they are that he's coming and how they are even more excited that he's coming in a helicopter. The gospel dancers have been preparing songs and the acrobatics team has been perfecting their flips. It's going to be such a great celebration.

The gospel dancers and myself went to Nairobi on Monday and recorded the song. It was such a neat experience and the song should hopefully be on the radio really soon. It sounds awesome. I'm bringing a copy of it home with me.

The time here has been so amazing, and the longer I stay the more worthwhile my time seems to be. It's been a month and now all the time that I have spent here investing into these kids lives seems to be opening them up. The older girls called me their big sister the other day...I'm taking that as a good sign. I pray every night that God just continues to fill me with more love than I can imagine so that I can in turn give it away to these kids and I feel like God is answering my prayers. It takes a lot of relying on God's strength here because when you hear a kid tell you about how thier family hates them or see a kid come who was beaten so badly that he has to have his eye removed, it honestly breaks your heart, but makes you just want to love more.

Sarah says that she hopes you are all doing well and enjoying the beautiful weather and that each day would be a new adventure spent with God (I hope I got that right). We thank you for your prayers and support.

Ps. Thanks to those who've supported us, class 4, 5 and 6 are finally getting the much needed textbooks that they've needed! Thank you so much! Praise God!

It's under a month now until we return...crazy how fast time flies!

Love Joelle