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!!!