4th Grade Flash Backs

Today was a blast. 

After devotions our team ate some breakfast and then headed off to Smile Africa. Smile Africa is a place that tons and tons of kids come to just be. The kids that come are the kids that don’t have anywhere else to go, many orphans, many street kids, many kids that come from families with just not enough to provide for them, each kid arrives to Smile with a story, and usually a complicated one. Here they are provided meals and it serves simply as a safe place to come and be. When ever the bus pulls in to Smile Africa kids start running… they grab your hands as you step off the bus… and I say ‘they’ grab your hands because there is usually a couple kids holding onto each hand and then some hanging onto your arm and then three or so walking right in front of you trying to get a hold of your hand or arm if anyone moves theirs for even a moment. Spending time at Smile is one of my favorite things to do. The kids just want to play with you… and it just so happens that I really love to play. If you don’t engage them in some sort of activity then you end up sitting somewhere with about 10 kids on top of you and all around you, touching your face and petting your arm hair and pulling on your necklaces (the kids usually try to rub my tattoo off… and look at their hand to see if anything was removed). I tend to get a little bit claustrophobic in that situation so I try to think of as many interactive games that involve lots of kids that I can during the hours that we are there. I have made friends with a couple of the older girls and I love hanging with them…

They have been teaching me some of those hand games… you know… like the ones all the girls in the 4^th grade know how to play. The games that are some sort of combination between a secret hand shake and umpire gestures and clapping that all come together as we sing some song that goes with a certain combination of all this. There was one game that was so fun… a group of us would stand in a circle and do the little clap hand routine and sing the song that progressively got faster and faster until the song would say “again again statue, again again statue” and then everyone would FREEZE right where they were and stay frozen until someone laughs. I like this game because one… I have a little bit of space. I love the kids… but having 12 of them touching me at once just makes me thankful for moments like this where I, well, don’t. The second reason was because when ever we froze if I could land in a pose that allowed me to keep eye contact with one of the girls it was just a matter of time before they would laugh, turns out that when you are a whitey you don’t have to do a ‘funny’ pose at all, its funny enough to be white and to me that was very amusing. I really enjoy the time I get to spend with these girls just laughing and playing games… and well… loving.  

I have spent time with the same girls the last couple of times there now… and I am looking forward to spending some more good time with them in the next couple of weeks. One thing that I have really missed on this trip (with all the moving around and different out reach weeks) has been having time to be apart of the same thing long enough to build relationships. It has been really wonderful to be in one place where we really can dive in with the time we have and get to be apart of ministries repeatedly. 

The rest of the day included ICE CREAM! (thanks Robert!!) yes, ice cream, driving Pastor Johns car all across town (I have only driven one other time since in Africa in Paul’s Land Rover and I really like driving so it was quite a welcomed surprise to hear Pastor John say “Come, you drive” as I was getting in the car!), going into the bush bush to a church service that meets in the shade of a small brick building under a tree, being gifted with a bag of popcorn seeds and two chickens, and me (the vegetarian) getting to carry the live chicken back to the car surrounded by a line of kids laughing and saying “CHICKEN CHICKEN…” and getting to drive back home with the chickens in the back… haha. Chickens.

I bet you could guess what Frank is out back cooking right at this very moment…