Week 9: Orphanage, OVC, HBC visits

Monday of this week, my team of 8 girls went with a team from Kara Counseling services to a village called Habanuga that was 30km out from Jembo Bible College. It took us about 3 hours to get to the village. The road from Jembo to Habanuga was the worst road that i have been on this whole trip. I have found i really enjoy bumpy rides though. My group had a lot of fun even though it was tiring day. We left at 8 and got back around 6. At the village where we went my team sang some songs for the men, women, and children who had come and the team from Kara Counseling did some health education with the people and covered a wide variety of topics. It was interesting to see how the people interacted and responded to the education. Before we left Marianna and i and some of the other girls ran around some chasing the children. There were so many of them, and they all just scattered when you moved towards them. I was worn out after a few minutes.

Tuesday morning i woke up to the sound of rain around 6:30. It fell steadily all morning and stopped before we had class around 11. It was very nice and helped to cool the air off here some. Later it did get pretty humid though. In the afternoon i worked on homework.

Wednesday afternoon i finally got to go to the orphanage. I went to the one closet to our guest house. It is run by a German couple and there are several young girls from Germany who volunteer to come over for 6 months at a time to work with the children. I was only there about two and a half hours but it was a really good time and i got to hold another baby on my back. I also had Jonathan with me the entire time. It was a good day.

Thursday our whole group got to go out on OVC visits (orphan, vulnerable children). We met with four families and their children and got to hear from them about how they are providing for the children and what their struggles are. Then we got to pray for each family. We also gave each family a bag of mealy meal, salt, sugar, cooking oil, and kapenta (little dried fish). A few of the girls gave some extra clothing they had with them to some of the families.

Friday we all went on HBC visits (home-based care). We met with two men who are HIV positive and are currently on ART therapy. We sat with them at their homes and heard from them their story about how AIDS has affected them and how they are doing with their medicine and if they are able to work to make a living for themselves. Both men that we saw the caregivers were encouraged by them because they were doing much better than when they had last seen them. We also gave them food and a bag of clothing and some other small gifts. Thursday night we made up gifts to each of the families from yesterday and to the families we visited today. I really enjoyed both days of visits and getting to meet with the different families.

Before Saturday of this week i had finished all my work expect for my research paper for Community. So that was my project all day Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night we also had a time of washing each others feet and praying for one another. That was a very powerful time for me and just brought some healing to my heart. Sunday we had a meeting with Megan from World Hope International to start our debriefing process.

Enjoy the pictures!

Week 9 Photos