New arrivals in Gyero !!!

This week has been full of new things, we have had two visiting teams here, one from Ireland doing construction work on our buildings as we try to re organise the structure of the place. It is exciting to see a brand new building nearly completed to house an Uncle and his family and 12 boys. We are working towards having all our boys living in small family units alongside an uncle and his family, for more accountability and less institutional living. The team from Mission Africa are demolishing walls of old buildings and converting them as well as putting the finishing touches to the new one.

The other team has been from Conneticut and they have been great at encouraging us as staff and doing many exciting activities with our kids. We have learned how to play baseball, have painted tee shirts, have made photo frames and have painted a huge map of Africa on the outside of our classroom wall so all of the boys can grasp where they live in relation to other parts of Africa. see below.....

It is really good to have teams come alongside us in the ministry, they bring many things for our children as well as adding so much to all our lives while they are here..so even though it is tiring it is worth it. It really helps people to see what the ministry is really about as they visit, many of these people have been supporters for years but its not until they come does it really all become alive. Some come year after year and are such a blessing.

Also this week a new arrival in the form of a baby girl born to one of our Uncles....so tiny and all wrapped up in traditional style here. The pics below show her with her big brother and father.

We Thank God for her safe arrival . Pray with us as over the next few weeks we have many visitors coming, Pray we will appreciate all of them and that God will really do an amazing work in all of their lives as a result.

a day of contrast---the joys of reconcilliation.

We set out early morning for a journey to take two of our boys and one girl to visit family about an hour away from here. We squashed in my jeep and began the drive. The roads here are something else, driving is a challenge as for some unknown reason everyone is in a hurry ( totally in contrast to normal life here ) and there are potholes and armed police checkpoints and nailboys to contend with. We sailed through and arrived at our first port of call which was Joseph's aunties home. Joseph is 18 we discovered and has lived with us about four/five years and hasnt been back to see his aunt in all that time. His parents died when he was tiny and the aunt looked after him for a while but was unable to afford to continue as he and his big brother got older and so he came to us.


He is quite a shy boy and when we arrived everyone in the compound was so suprised and happy to see him he had tears in his eyes as they were exclaiming about how big he had grown etc... as we left him to visit for the weekend to get to know his family again he was chocked up but this is the start of the process for him....

Then we went a bit further along the road and found Nehemiah's grandparents. He was so happy to be home and they were delighted to see him. This is only the second time he has visited in the last four years to and is burdened to preach to his older brother who has an alcohol problem, and to check on his younger brother after they were all orphaned years ago. Nehemiah came to us due to involvement in the occult and his life was in danger, however now his family are accepting he has changed and hopefully in the next few years he should be able to return, when he finishes school.

All was going well so far...but this was about to change....
We had with us our newest girl Godiya as we were trying to discover more about her background. She was found begging on the streets and brought to us last week. To begin with she threw herself into activities with the other girls and seemed to settle well, then suddenly on Monday she packed her bag and said she had a dream that her grandma was sick in the village and needed her to look after her !! this was the first we knew about any family as she had told us she was an orphan and didnt know her wider family. Her behaviour dramatically altered and so we all had an uneasy feeling in our spirits and knew we had to check this out fast....so !!!
We arrived at the village and she jumped out and ran up to a crippled lady who she told us was her grandma...the lady looked a bit strange at us and didnt speak...a bit weird we thought and soon as were "white visitors" we attracted attention of two "angels" dressed as teachers from the village who started asking questions of our Pastor and then started shouting at the girl !! odd we thought as they marched her off in a different direction and told us to follow ! Where are we going we asked "to see her family" came back the reply !!! we thought she was an orphan so this was a surprise to us....we discovered she did indeed have two parents and was one of 10 children!!!!! and she had run away from home about a month ago and the lady she had taken us to wasnt even a relative !!! The parents were farming so Pastor jumped on the back of a motorbike and disappeared to find them on the farm...meanwhile the whole of the village had turned out to stand and stare at these white ladies , and the rain came and so our "angels" took us to see their pastor and then the leader of the womens fellowship, even though they had never met us before they took great delight in sharing the horror of the story house to house.... they arranged food for us all while we were waiting....
The mum arrived and told us a tale about her daughter and we realised God had indeed spared us from a whole lot of potential trouble !! she herself just carried on as though nothing had happened...really bizarre...and so we left her with her family and the village with something to talk about.
Just a crazy drive home, the Lord really protected us, despite being offered an aligator for sale waved at our car as we slowed at a roundabout !!

What a day of contrasts...over 140 miles covered ....a huge cultural experience....and real thankfulness that we had acted on our instincts ....and we arrived back home safely to tell the tale!!!

A new assistant ....

This is my new assistant.....her name is Jamie and she is from Seattle in USA.... she is here for six months and has come at such a great time to help me with the mountain of work which has come my way...as camp draws near and Erin is still at home sick so i am taking on some more tasks...( for an update on erin check out her blog at erinrigsby@blogspot.com)

She is great and is slowly getting used to all my strange British sayings....She was very puzzled this week when i asked her to put something in my boot, she didnt know what it was !!!

She is helping with the girls ministry as the girls really miss Aunty Erin and need someone to be with their family group...

Its great for me to have someone observe what i am doing and comment on situations, it renews enthusiasm and helps me to know that my life is as random as i think it is. No one day ever turns out quite as expected...

Praise the Lord for his provision.......

new girls....join us

Our Girls ministry is growing, in the last few months we have had five girls join us for a variety of reasons. They range from age 13 to six and two are sisters. We are now up to 15 !!!

The three in the top picture are Miriam, Patience and Precious and the bottom two Mary and Godiya. Two came due to being orphaned recently, one has been involved in occultic practices and is with us for her own safety and two came as a result of their father dying and mother becoming invloved in prostitution. They have all settled in really quickly and are so happy just to get the chance to be a child, a girl surrounded by other girls and to feel safe again. Its a pleasure getting to know them. Obviously they come with challenges, one being very few clothes except what they arrive in !!! but our new Grandma is such a prayer warrior she spends hours praying over the girls and loves them to bits and Mama Sati absorbs them all into her family...with such great role models we pray they will grow into strong women of God.

One of them was so protected by God this week. Her parents both died in the last few years and her older sister ran away and she and another sister were taken seperately to be a housemaid to a distant relative. This girl was treated quite badly and not schooled and had to work hard and then this week the lady who was "caring" for her told her they were travelling to Jos. They arrived and went into town and the lady told her to wait while she went to get something and never came back. So this young girl was left stranded , never having been to Jos, knowing no one and having no where to go. She started to beg...and Praise God she begged to a lady who knew of our ministry and who immediately brought her to us.. God literally saved her as who knows what would have happened to her on the street...and she then came into the ministry and has accepted Jesus as her own personal saviour and has started a new life at Gyero...

Back in the saddle ....a few updates to catch up

Sorry to all of you who had started to get used to reading my Blog , I am horrified to see its been since March !!! well plenty of reasons....mostly lack of electricity and internet issues and i have been incredibly busy and i did go on holiday for 3 weeks !!!! so anyways I am now in possession of a generator and will endevour to do a better job of keeping up to date....

So a few things that have been happening around here....brace yourselves.... maybe have a cup of tea and a biscuit and make yourselves comfortable....!!!

RECONCILLIATION

We have continued to work towards reconcilling those boys that have family and are about to take 10 home this summer when school finishes. As you can imagine this process takes time and require lots of visits and paperwork and co ordination to make sure the situation we are sending the children back into is a good one. At Easter time we sent the boys home and then we visited...well quite a challenge as some of them live in remote places, I am very thankful for my jeep ( God obviously knew the kinds of terrain i would need to travel on when he got it for me !!! ) so many times the Uncles tell me to "go straight" and my responce is "but there is no road" to which they laugh and we proceed !!! Then I listen to conversations in Hausa of which i pick up a word or two , and smile a lot and shake hands and drink a mineral and then off to the next house. It has been a huge cultural learning curve for me, I have been in all sorts of homes and have always been treated like royalty , but it has been a real priviledge to meet people.

The families are so grateful for the way their children have changed its a real credit to the ministry and to our Heavenly father who gave us these to look after.

I have now been given the job of managing the reconcilliation process for the ministry !! and managing the team to visit regularly etc.. no small job i cn tell you but one I am loving.

For some of our children there cannot be reconcilliation now, maybe never but wherever we can we encourage visits from family. The following photo shows two of our girls Rebecca and Blessing reunited with their brother Wisdom who is at one of our other centres over an hour away...( because we have all girls in one place) we visited with a team recently overnight and it was unexpected...the delight on his face as he saw his two sisters was awesome...he gave them such a big hug it was hard not to cry....family means so much here...