Merged this blog with current one A Beautiful Melody.

In other words this one will soon be deleted but all posts from it can be found on the current one.

Just a quick update

to let you know everything is okay with us. If you heard about the earthquake a few days ago or the bombings yesterday they were both on different islands then where we are at. Please continue to pray for the safety of all the teams here and that we'll use our remaining time, less then two weeks, to our fullest advantage in sharing the love of Christ with the people.

Not too much has been going on. We made a trip back to the village 5 hours away one day to help pass out medicine. We will be going back to that village to retrieve our team phone that was "misplaced" there. It'll be our 4th time having to tell those kids "bye". On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays we are going to the refugee camps and having Sunday school with the kids. We shared the message of Jesus and salvation in the villages on Monday and Tuesday but weren't able to in the village Wednesday. We will do it next Wednesday. The middle schoolers are back at the children's home. The rest of the kids will come back next week. We'll only have a week with all the kids back and then it'll be time for us to leave.

Just for fun. This is some of what we eat. Rice, chicken, rice, noodles, rice, potatoes, rice, fish, rice, green stuff(lots of vegetables fall under this category), rice, chicken, rice, carrots, rice, tofu, rice, chicken, rice, goat, rice.

-Emily

update

Well we are back at the children's home for the remainder of our time. We really enjoyed our time in the village and I think I can speak for all of us and say we all wil miss the children and people from the village. We did the same things there we've been doing, with the main thing being leading Sunday school each day for the kids.  

The last day that we led Sunday School in the village we were planning to teach about the death and resurrection of Christ and slavation. That same day there was a christening in the Catholic church so we were expecting significantly fewer kids to show up. We were a little late getting to where we have Sunday school and when we got there there were less then 10 kids. We waited a little longer to see if any other kids were coming. I can't describe the joy i felt when slowly but surely more kids started coming from all directions. God is so good! There were about 40 children which is about what we were having the other days and 5 parents. Many of the kids that came came for the first time that day.  I don't know if any kids accepted Christ that day but we told the most important message we could ever share with them. We were able to  plant that seed. 

-Emily

another update so soon!

The plan as of now is to leave tomorrow and to stay in the village for 8 days. We will continue to do the bible stories with the children there as well as bible studies with the adults each day and whatever else we can (such as fetching water) to help out some of the families. On the 1st Cecil along with our supervisor will be flying out to another island. Please pray for their safe travel. Please also pray for the health of our team. We are all getting sick with coughing and runny noses.

-Emily

quick update

The village was not nearly as rough as we were expecting it to be. We led a bible story and songs each day there just like we did in the other villages we visited. We also did some prayer walking through the village, visited with a few people, and had house church with some of the adults one night. In the afternoons after the story and songs we would go down to the beach with the kids and play games. We got to watch the sunset when we were at the beach. It was amazing! Watching it I am in awe and am reminded of God's great power and beauty. We will be going back to the children's home for a few days and it's still up in the air whether or not we'll be able to go back to the village. Sorry this is such a short update. We are almost halfway through, time sure flies by! Thank you so much for your prayers and comments!

-Emily

Emily says...

We have continued staying at the children's home and building relationships with the kids there. We have visited 4 refugee camps/villages. Just to give you an idea of these villages, one of them was a large building with basically cubicle like structures made of sticks which were the families' home. Going to these places really gives us a new appreciation for many things we take for granted. Monday we will leave the children's home to go stay in a village similar to the ones we have visited. We are a bit nervous because we don't know what exactly to expect, what we will be doing, or even how long we will be there! We are ready though. We'll really be putting "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength," to the test. I know we can do it, for us it will only be a few weeks at most. Some of the children we have gotten to know at the home are from this village, not to mention the many other children we haven't met yet who live in these villages. It's not just a few weeks for them, it's life.

Just a few more random tid-bits: we've been having an unwelcome visitor in our room the past few nights while we are trying to sleep. A rat!

There are some things that seem pretty universal: 1. God, 2. smiles, 3. high-fives, 4. kids with bubblewrap

To the Jefferson people, we are going through the book of Acts for our daily quiet times, this makes me think of y'all every morning.