Day 7 -- Sunday at Charity and Faith Church

This morning as I was getting dressed I kept thinking of what I had to wear that would keep me warm. Not much was the verdict. So, taking a page from the South African's book I decided to pray about it. "God, could you please keep me warm at church today? I want to be able to enjoy the service." Simple, and I'm not sure how much faith I prayed it with. It seemed kind of silly, but hey -- what the heck.

As we walked into Charity and Faith the first set of eyes that met mine were Naye Naye's. She's the little girl that came to Cincinnati and stayed with Lori. Right away she raised her hands for me to lift her up. I put her on my hip and walked to a seat. By the time I was there all of the chill of the cold South African morning was gone. Prayer answered.

We had a great time dancing at church, and it was quite the workout holding a six year old. AP says "she's heavy -- I have no idea how you held her so long."After the singing and dancing and a few announcements I slipped out the back of the church to find South African Kids Club. It is a small room in the back of the church. The kids sit on the floor and one woman reads to all of them out of a Bible that we brought last year. I walked into the room and she handed me the Bible. I guess I was on. I took it, invited the kids to our program that is happening every afternoon this week and then gave a short talk on God as our shepherd. The kids had a blast, and we ended up hanging out in the sun for about thirty minutes until the main service got out. Here are some of them:
They loved to pose and see how the camera worked and we laughed a lot.

A few minutes later we loaded up the taxis (small buses) for a trip to one of Charity and Faith's nine branch campuses. We happened to go to Nillmapious. It is a tent church in the middle of the informal settlements. Will and Beth got in the taxi with us, and we were off. As we arrived I quickly pow wowed with Beth. I told her I was just going to hang out with the kids, and she asked if she could join me. Of course, I loved to have her along. We entered the small stone room that is their school as well as "children's church". I saw a familiar face -- Finnious who used to work at the hospice, but is now working as a teller at a bank. He was teaching the children. I watched Beth melt as she hugged her first child in the middle of the joyful nothing of the township. It was beautiful:


For the next hour and a half we sang and danced with the children. We prayed with them and Finnious told two great stories. The kids played with our hair and tried on our sunglasses. This is my Africa. It is the kind of place that time gets lost for the beauty of a relationship. Both Beth and I teared up several times. I'm not sure if I was more weepy about being with the kids or seeing Beth with them. Both were fantastic.



As service ended I happened to touch the back of a boy in an orange shirt that was sitting next to me most of the morning. I just felt skin and bones. My heart sank. I looked at this face. Those sad eyes and sunken in cheeks brought to mind only one question. "Are you sick?"

"yes."

"What kind of sick?"

"I have the disease."

No. Not these kids. Somewhere in my brain I know that many of the kids we meet are HIV positive. But the hope that it steels from a country that is full of faith is devastating. The boy laid his head in my lap and I think that we both started to tear up. I rubbed his frail back and he smiled a big smile. This is the face of AIDs, but it shouldn't be. There shouldn't be a face of AIDs.



Church was over so everyone came out of the big tent and we spent some time taking pictures with kids. While the kids have ALWAYS loved playing with my hair, this year they have noticed AP's short cut, too. They all want to see what it feels like:



We said some long goodbyes and headed back to Charity and Faith.

There we had lunch and gave tours of the campus to the 300 trip participants. Then, we matched people up with their host families for the night. Some of us aren't staying in the township tonight. We thought it was best if we get a full night of sleep before our first work day tomorrow. So, AP and I are safe and warm at the hotel. We'll spend the night in the township next week.

Thank you all for your comments. I feel like you are here with us, like we have our own personal cheering section back home. We are one third of the way finished today -- 14 days to go. I'll try to capture every beautiful moment to share with you. Love you friends.