What an excellent Sunday!

This morning we went to church, but instead of sitting through the sermon, we were asked to come outside and help with children's church. This little bible class was lead by Jennifer, one of the women here who Sarah Hackney got really close to during her time at HIZ. It was excellent! They sang a lot of songs, including Blessed Child which is the best! Then we played a name game for us and the kids to learn each other's names. Then Jennifer read them a bible story and asked them questions about it. And if at any point a kid wasn't singing or paying attention, Jennifer would stop mid-song and call them out! Hilarious. After it was over, I talked to Jennifer for a little while. She gave me a huge hug when I said I was friends with Sarah!

Then we headed over to the Hamby house where Kaylee, Lacey, Jaime, and I got lunch ready. It was a lot of hard work.... It takes some skill to heat up leftovers like we did! We ate a delicious meal of leftover chicken spaghetti, regular spaghetti, enchiladas, and rice and beans.

After that, Marja had a little chat with Jaime, Meghann, and me about what we should expect and what she was expecting of us for the language classes this week. Pause. I just want to take a second and say how glad I am that Marja and Caroline are here with us! They are such a great addition to our group and I have learned so much from them already! Plus, they are hilarious. Around 2:15, we headed over to the Haven for the afternoon. I'm not going to lie, language is a little harder for me to get into. But that's okay. It will be good for me, and I love the kids so that helps a lot! Our time at Haven 1 went a little better than our time at Haven 3. But that's only because it started POURING rain! Which made it really hard to hear, and subsequently hard to teach our little lessons. But we still had fun playing around with those babies, who are just about the happiest babies ever. Overall, it was a good afternoon!

Tonight we had church again. I couldn't really understand the preacher at all so I just ended up reading a little from my Bible. After the sermon, we sang "When We All Get to Heaven" and it was awesome. That song has a whole new meaning to me now. Normally I just think about "we" as everyone I know, including those who have passed away. But tonight, I really felt the "we" to be Christians as a whole. And that is awesome. So awesome that a few people went forward. Three people had decided to get baptized! What a blessing. They announced we would go to .... somewhere. None of us could understand. So we just decided to follow the masses. We ended up heading over to the Mann house, which is right next door to the Hamby house where we eat all of our meals and where the Tulli are staying. They had a bathtub that they put in the backyard and filled it with water. Everyone gathered around to watch. And when I say everyone, I mean a hundred plus people, crowded around a tiny little tub! On the way there, another teenage boy decided to be baptized as well. 4 baptisms! After they were over, one of the brothers prayed the most excellent prayer. Marja videoed it and I'm going to put it on my computer! So if anyone wants to hear it when I get back, you totally can. Then everyone lined up and shook the 4 new brothers/sisters' hands as they sang a beautiful Tongan song. We all waited on the Hamby porch while all of the Zambians filed through. We said goodnight to some of them, but we only know a very small number of them since all of our time is spent at the Haven with the babies. Then towards the end, Edwin came through! Edwin was the guy who drove the missing luggage back so we all know and love him. We all said, "Hey Edwin!" and shook his hand. He loved it.

Now we're back at our house and ready to wind down for the night!

Here is a link to Caroline's blog. She posted the stats for our little feeding groups. Even if you don't get what it all means, you will be able to see how much improvement our little babies have made in just 1 week!!! I'm so excited to be a part of this!