Emotionally exhausted.

Today was a har day, emotionally. We woke up this morning and got to go see the Westgate Haven girls to finish painting their backyard and just hang out with them. At last, we had finished painting and just got to hang around for a while. I had layed down for a while because my back was starting to hurt from all the bending from painting. So we played a lot of ninja fruit, which the girls LOVE! It was nice to just sit and not have an agenda and hang out.

After we left the Westgate Girls we went to Mbare which is one of, if not the poorest part in Harare. It was so devestating to just drive through. There were literally so many people in such a small amount of space. Broken homes, Huge apt buildings with just broken windows and weeds growing everywhere. people just standing around, mostly because they have no job and nothing to do. Kids playing in teh street, one boy, maybe 1 or 2 years old, who Amanda D. saw jsut sitting on the side of the street playing with pieces of glass and there was really no one around him. The amount of poverty in this place was just astonishing. I tried to take some pictures which i'll post later, but they are very against pictures in most of this country. Either they don't want to be portrayed as very poor to the rest of the world, or they will demand money from you if you want to take a picture of them. And that's not just in Mbare but in the whole country of Zimbabwe.
So we did some shopping in Mbare before heading home to eat left over of Jen's soup from last night, which was EVEN BETTER then the night before.
After dinner we went back to the Westgate house for the last time. We all sat down and had some of our team, and some of the Westgate girls share their testimonies and their dreams of what they want to do and how God is working in their lives, which was awesome. I could sit and listen to those girls forever. Then Jon and Glen gave them some encouraging words and we ended by eating chocolate cake.
After that came pictures and smiling faces before we had to say goodbye and the tears came. They all made each one of us a cards thanking us for coming, and sang us a song, which was awesome. I love to hear those girls sing, it brings all of us on our team such joy. So then came the goodbyes along with many tears. It's definitely hard to have to say goodbye. We were the first actual team from Westgate to go out and see them. Steve and Kaivan had gone out at different times, but we were the first of a whole team to be able to go out and get to know eacn and every one of these girls, and it was such a blessing. Those girls will forever have a special place in my heart.

Now we are home, and pretty exhausted and it's definitely time to sleep.
We are going to Hifield Nazarene church in the morning where Jonny T will be preaching!

Painting, Painting, and more painting!

This morning we headed out from the office for our last time going out to Regare. Jon, Joyce, and I went and finished painting the house and the outside bathrooms, while the others were at the briding school. At 11, we went and met the other half of the team at the bridging school and helped pass out shirts (which were camp Sharks shrits from 2007 that wern't used) and new shoes for the 20 kids that were there. It was awesome to watch them all smile and just stare at the new things that we got. Sadly, then it was time to leave. Saying goodbye to them was the saddest thing so far, Paster Henry and his team and all the girls and boys were so great to work with and talk to. I will miss them all so much!

For lunch Glen took us to an Italian restaurant where I had an amazing pasta and the best garlic bread!

After lunch we went back to the Westgate Haven house to help paint the deck, which was so much fun! Josi, the house mom went and picked the girls up from church an hour early so they could come and help us. We had a great time painting together and painting each other and just laughing and joking. We get to go back and see them one last time tomorrow morning!

Now we are back and Jennifer is making us chicken soup! And it smells great. And it's only 6Pm, and I'm ready for bed!

HAMBURGERS, CAKE, and ICE CREAM!

Woke up this morning and went back to regare to PAINT! I now consider myself a professional painter, I have been painting the past 4 days. It's been good though, today I got to talk to a guy who works with the church who has been helping us paint and just talking about the difference of life in Africa. Talking about our customs compaired to theirs, the different roles men and women have in every day life. Painting is a "man's job" in Africa, while women just cook and take care of the babies, but things are slowly changing and being influenced by our western culture.
And for lunch we got to have HAMBURGERS! they actually wern't very good at all, but it was a much needed break from sadza. And after lunch we got to do some more shopping, where I got some pretty cool stuff for my family. And after shopping we went back to that coffee shop and had some hot chocolate and CAKE! it was pretty amazing!
From there we made a quick stop before going to an orphanage, we went to this place where they are these HUGE rocks, and so many of them and they are just placed and stacked on top of each other in the weirdest way. No ones knows how they go there, it's the coolest thing EVER. we got to climb them for a while :]
And then we went to Fern Rd. B (the other side of the orphanage we went to on tuesday) and got to sit in there with all the orphan girls and hear some of their stories. They ranged from ages of 2 to like 17. One girl (her name is Precious) was found when she was 4, she had been a victim of human trafficking and was found in a crate. She had been brough over from Congo and they are currently trying to find her mother and get her back to her, but it's not looking like their going to find her. So all the girls sang for us, and we played board games like Jenga and Sorry and made bracelets and sun catchers. It was a great night, just like every other night! Every night is so different at every orphanage, and each one is special in it's own way.
On the way home Glen made a secret stop and him and Jon got out of the car, and wouldn't let us out, and they got us soft serve ice cream! So nice!


P.S. I forgot to mention that yesterday Amanda DeOcampo cut off a chickens head yesterday.... yup, it was pretty gross.

Here are some pictures I pulled off of Dougs facebook....


This is of the girl who was in human trafficking, Patience.


Here's us on Day 1 of painting the girl's orphan home in Regare.


This is of our painting family out at the farm yesterday.

Where are all the Zebras?!?!

Woke up and was out of the house by 7:30 this morning! Thankfully we had a full day with no rain today!
We met up at the highfield church and met up with 4 other mission kids form Oregon and from some people who attend the church who all came out to help us out painting today.
We went out to a place they call "The Farm" which not the kind of farm you're thinking of. This is a huge piece of land that Hands of Hope has, it's 1,000 acres. It's far away from the city and more out in the "country". There are currently 3 dome structures they have built on the land. 2 of them have orphaned children in them, the third one was just built and they will be getting more kids for it shortly. These dome structures were pretty cool, they had a central circular room and it had 4 doorways that lead to 4 bedrooms. They had also bought cattle to raise and be able to sell over time. Sadly we didn't have a lot of time to play with any of the kids, we spend most the day painting all the huts. There was one little boy there who we got to hear about his story.. his name is Lovegood and he was found by a river next to his father's body, who they think had been dead for around 4 days before they found him. He had just been sitting next to his dad's body. Very sad, he is such a sweet boy though, very shy. We spent the whole day there and are now back at home for the day.

Food, shower, and sleep are all that's on my agenda form the rest of the evening.


P.S. the farm was over an hour away and all 30 of us took a van, so we almost felt liek we were on a safari because we were really out there with no building, only little hidden huts in the trees/grass. So we were sad to say that we found no zebras or giraffes on the ride... only a couple of monkeys, which i missed.

Every Day Gets Harder.

As the days go on things seems to hit me harder then the day before. Today we went back to Pastor Henrys house to continue painting, we got half of the house and the whole outside finished today, and we will be returning on thursday and friday to finish. The other half of our team went over to the bridging school (which i described in the previous post). Jon was working with this one 11 year old boy who had never held a pencil before, and it took him a couple hours just to teach him how to write the numbers 1 through 4. It's so sad to see kids at their age know so little about reading and writing who are at the age where they should be fluent in both subjects.
So we had our small disciple ship groups with the kids again today, and some of the prayer requests from other groups that I heard were asking for a better life or more food, because they hardly get any.
I had a girl in my group yesterday and today, and when i was painting the girl's orphan home today i realized that she lived in the house! Her name is Faith, and she is so inspiring to listen to. Her knowledge of the bible, and really understanding of God and how we get to heaven made my heart smile. She just gets it. And today we got to talk alot about prayer and what it is, and it was really great. I look forward to getting to know her more the next 2 days we're out there.

After discipleship, Glen took us to get some hot chocolate and coffee because it rained today and was very cold. Apparently it never rains this time of year either. Awesome....

So then we went to Paster Pete's Orphan house which is supported by Hands of Hope, and got to meet the girls there, and met 1 little boy who was there as well. The little boy they had found in a dumpster and had been abandoned as a infant, probably only 2 months old or less. However, he is the happiest boy I've ever met (My facebook profile picture is of him). One of the girls mom had died, and she was living with her step mom and dad, and her dad had moved down to South Africa, and her step mom basically told her she didn't wan to live with her anymore and kicked her out. So she lived on the streets for a couple months before getting taken to child services. And there was a baby, who is less then a year old whose both parents died of aids when she was only around 2 months old. So we had dinner with the kids there and had the most amazing meal we've had to far on this trip.

P.s. Jon and tyler just scared us AGAIN. tyler banged at the door... Jon caught me screaming on video.

Tomorrow we get to go out to the farm, which not an acutal farm but has 3 dome houses on it with kids! I'll update tomorrow

:]

Kids Kids Kids :]

This morning we had a change to go Regare to Pastor Henry’s church and paint the whole house… inside and outside. Although we didn’t get a chance to finish today, we will be going back the next 2 days. Along with painting, half of our team went and helped out at the bridging school down the street. The bridging school is for kids who haven’t had a chance to go to school for various reasons like not being able to afford it or just have to stay home. So instead of the kids going to school and having to start in first grade and work their way up, they go to this school for a year so they can teach them all they need to know to go into the appropriate grade for their age. I went and helped paint instead of going to the school, but it was sad to hear that there were kids around 12 who couldn’t even write their name, or read a single word. However, it is a really great program they got going on there. So we painted a couple rooms today, and then went down to the bridge-school and just got to play with the kids (kids from the school and kids from just the area around the place)!
First, Jenny was standing near the line of pre-school kids and she had stepped out one leg to stretch it, and looked up to realize all the pre-school kids were copying here. So Jenny and I sat there and would do silly things and watch the little kids giggle and follow us, It was so much fun to watch and see them laugh. They didn’t speak English and couldn’t understand us but it was a great to be able to play with them. Where they had the church and bridge-school they also had a feeding program. Here they feed about 100 to 200 kids every day, which is where they probably get their only meal of the day (Regare is one of the poorest places in Harare). So we spent the afternoon playing games like “Duck, Duck, Pig” (since they don’t have geese in Africa to play Duck Duck Goose). It was a great experience and I can’t wait to go back tomorrow.
It’s almost unreal the experience we had today, in that half the kids we saw today were orphans because their parents had died of aids or some other disease. And these kids live on so little and are for the most part great hearted, happy kids. It breaks my heart to think of how much they have gone through at such a young age. I just can’t wrap my head around how much they have lost in the little time they’ve been on this earth. It’s really hard to digest and process through because I have never experienced anything like this before.

For dinner we went to another orphanage of over 20 kids that Glen and his wife had actually built. There were actually 2 who were connected by a gate, and they had a great piece of land where the girls and boys could walk around. We were joined by 4 college kids who are staying in Zimbabwe for 2 months, and we ended up playing a name game and then capture the flag, which was AWESOME in their huge yard. We ran a lot and I think I went to jail like 20 times… haha. And then they served us dinner and we got to share a bit about how the house, came to be, and one of our team mates shared their testimony with the group.

Prayers for the kids are definitely much needed!

Sunday Church

This morning we woke up and went to Calvary Baptist Church, the church where the Westgate Haven orphan girls go to. John Talbert spoke there today and gave a great sermon on how God uses everyday people to do extrodinary things. It was such a great church to attend, the worship music was so amazing. They had guitar players, number people singing, and a saxaphone player, it was beautiful and everybody was so high in spirits. The church was so welcoming and it was great to be able to visit there. After church we went back to the Westgate Haven home for lunch and got to spend some quality time with the girls just hanging out.

So then we did a little shopping before having dinner. We went to this 2 story open-market. The bottom story was mostly wooden carved objects and all sorts of fun stuff. And upstairs was more of clothing, jewelry, and a bunch of random stuff. This is also were i bought a drum :] It's awesomeee, and i got her almost down to half the price it was suppose to be... I'm learning how to bargain, which is not really too fun. But i did get an awesome drum, It might not fit in my suitcase. But it was fun to walk around and see what everybody was selling.

We came back to the office to have a African meal of pizza and soda... :]
It's only 7:30PM here not and very dark and i feel like it's 11:30 PM.

So jon just came into the main room, where there were 4 of us sitting, in a room where 1 wall is all windows. It's very dark outside and Jon looked out the windown and said "what was that...? It definitely wasn't the dog" and we kind of just brushed it off knowing how Jon is.. haha. So then Shelby, Jenny, and I were talking about how creepy it would be if we saw an alien, like in Signs. And then all of a sudden, OUT OF NO WHERE, Jon and Tyler run up to the window from outside and bang on the window. THey scared us SO MUCH, i was so scared...
Good times... Good times.. I'm still a little jumpy.

..Looking forward to tomorrow :]

Amanda Beck

Amazed

Today was absolutely amazing. We woke up this morning for breakfast followed by an orientation about the country, with some do's and dont's. Then it was time to hit the streets! Glen had prepared a kind of scavenger hunt/street evangelism for us. We would find things like how much a refridgerater costs, or where what a "robot" was. Then the second half of downtown was just talking to people about church, and if they went and why. Also asking if they believed in heaven, and what they would have to do to get there. Let me first start out by saying people in Zimbabwe are very different then people in California. They are very open and willing to talk to you and so so so friendly. No one i talked to all day was rude or brushed me off, but instead fully engaged in the conversation we were having, it was awesome. About 80% of the country calls themselves christian, and almost 100% believe in some sort of spiritual realm, so very different from back home. It was great to get out and talk to people on the streets, a lot less intimidating then I first thought it was going to be when we got downtown. And can i say, i think i was the only blonde person in all of downtown, haha.
So we ended up eating lunch together downtown. We ate Sadza, which is made out of corn, but looks like mashed potatoes, and kind of tastes like mashed up white rice. It's not my new favorite meal or anything, but it also wasn't too bad. Sadza is what people eat almost every day.

After we came back from downtown we got to go to the Westgate Haven House. This is a house of 12 orphan girls that Westgate church has helped financially aid over the past 10 years. As soon as i got out of the van, there was a line of girls waiting to give us all a hug hello! I was absolutely blown away by these girls for many various reasons. First, they had wrote and sang a song for us that brought our whole team to tears. They are an amazing group of singers and when they all sang together and harmonized we were all just in awe. At the end of the song they sang "thank you for loving us" and that truely just made me tear up. They were so much fun to hang out with and my favorite part was seeing them laugh. We had the whole afternoon with them as they gave us a tour of the house they're living in, we made bracelets together, and played some card games. Everyone of those girls has been through so much, and to see them in such high spirits and so kind and loving just amazes me. Every moment i spend there brought me such joy. And I am so excited to spend more time with them and go to church with them tomorrow morning.

So now we are back at the cabin and i finally got to shower. woooo hooo!

Today has been such a blessing, and for the fist day here i can only imagine how amazing this trip is going to be. God is so good and i can't wait to see what he has for us all tomorrow!



I read this today and was so comforted, so I thought I'd share.
Joshua 1:9
9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.


P.S. Prayers for shelby because sadly she has come down with a cold!

35 hours later..

35 Hours after meeting at church, we are finally with glen at the cabin we are stayin in :]
SO we got here safe and sound!
It's been a long day and a half, and I'm off to bed, goodnight! :]


Amanda Beck

7 Hours...

This picture is the amazing 9 other people on my team!

So in 7 Hours from now I will be leaving church on the way to the airport to start the journey to Zimbabwe, Africa. I still feel like tomorrow will just be some ordinary day, however it will mark a very memorable day in my life. The furthest from home i have ever been is to mexico, on a cruise, in 6th grade. So this is starting a brand new and exciting adventure in my life. This is my very first missions trip and I can not express how excited and curious I am to see what God is going to show and teach me over the next 2 weeks. My prayer for this trip is that i will be very open to His guidance and let him lead me, and know that he is in control.

I will try and log on and write when i have a little bit of free time! Thank you for all your support and prayers! Love you all!