Africa AHH!!!

8-27-10
Breakfast, painting, food packing and then off to camps. A friend, Adam, that we met at church last week comes to the safe house and hangs out with us for a bit. He also gives us some oatmeal. Man does it look good. Adam has been here for about a month now and he is building a Hospital. Very cool kid. Crazy side story. Suzie is moving from Hawaii to Colorado a week after we get back to a town called Loveland for school. She knows nobody there and is very nervous about it. Adam is lives in Loveland Colorado. Adam has never been to the church we went to until that week. He just randomly decided to change (for one week) from the one he was going to about 20 minutes south of us. God is so good. Suzie basically goes to tears when we find this out. I love that girl. After packing some food we go to Koro Abili IDP camp. I love that camp a ton. Dennis and Wilson are two of the kids that I connect really well with there. They are great and both will be going down to the land ☺ We do some picture taking for setting up sponsorships so the kids have their name, age, grade and camp on these signs. We pass out the food and than head back to the hotel.

8-28-10
Not getting picked up until 1pm so we get a restful and God filled morning. I spend most of it in a quiet time. Amazing. One of the best experiences of my life. Get some food packed and head out to next IDP camp; Labora. More pictures and food handing out, before we head back for sleep time

8-29-10
Church! Love church again but we were having a discussion about mega-churches before church, worst decision anyone can make. It distracts me almost the whole time but I don’t completely waste it. Lunch, food packing and then off to the next camp; Te-Tuku. Hotel and bonding time in the guys room before bed.

8-30-10
Today is a little bit different, because we wash our clothes today at the safe house along with the painting. Pack up more food and head out to Obia. Great news. Van is finally fixed after about a week of it being down and Charles the driver is back which is a huge blessing. He is an amazing person. Suzie is not feeling well and we drop her off at the hotel so that she can doze, as the locals call it. Come back from pictures and food passing out. We also got some great footage today because at this camp is the first Ugandan hipster that I have ever seen. She is 12 years old and wrote a poem about children’s rights so we recorded her saying that. It is good and powerful and crazy to hear such insight from a 12 year old. Get a change of plans for tomorrow. Brynn and I were going to go and follow a specific VOH kid Joyce for her normal day life but Rose has a meeting come up so we are going to do it on Wednesday instead. Joyce has a crazy story. We will also be following another kid the following day named Solomon doing the same type of thing. Another change comes that now we have a bunch of interview questions to ask the kids along with the pictures. So now we have to go back to all the camps we have taken pictures at and do the interviews. TIA(this is Africa)? Gotta love it.

8-31-10
We have oatmeal for breakfast that our mizzungoo (mizz-ung-goo: white person) friend that we met at church Adam gave us. Great guy Adam. Than guess what; painting, food packing, and IDP camps. This one is called Laroo. (La-row) The one change is that we do interviews there as well as pictures. Come back and get some ice cream before bed. Early bed time for me cause of following Joyce tomorrow.

9-1-10
6am. Alarm. Horrible. I’ll skip the gory details but we make it make it to her camp around 7am and she is already up and moving. Joyce has a crazy story. She lives with her aunt because her parents were killed and she has a big scar on the side of her head from the incident. She was literally shot in the head and lived. Nobody has any idea how she lived but one thing is for sure; she loves Jesus. We shoot all day and its amazing how much work these kids do. She was doing any of the following for about 5-6 hours of the day while we were there; weeding, washing, cooking, gathering water, gathering potatoes, washing potatoes or getting firewood. 15 years old and could make Mother Teresa blush. After a bunch of good footage we head back and eat with the team. Great to be back with them and we play some cards before bed.

9-2-10
6a Alarm. Still horrible. Get to Alex’s (by the way Solomon is at his grandpa’s place so we switched to another VOH kid Alex) hut. Alex lives with his Grandma and Grandpa because his parents are dead. He was a child solider at one point for a bit before he got away and got into a camp. All I can think about from seeing this kid is how he is 15 and he has the demeanor of a 20 year old. Same drill lots of work just a different type. Planting, brick making and schoolwork. Good footage here too and we head out to meet the team at Laboro to do interviews and a couple of retakes. Do that and than head back for eats and bed. We will be getting picked up later around 10am tomorrow because both Brynn and I are starving for a time chill time

Needs:
Overall health of the team I think almost everyone is running at about 80%
Me:
My family. They are so good and just have some extra stresses that wisdom is needed for as well as an overwhelming Joy of my sister being engaged.

Love yall
Collin