You have changed my sadness into a joyful dance;
You have taken away my sorrow and surrounded me with joy.
So I will not be silent; I will sing praise to you
Lord, you are my God; I will give you thanks forever
Today we reminisced about what it was like to be a kid! We played with them from the time they arrived from school until dusk. Monday and Thursday nights, there is no power in the city, except for those having their own generators. We stayed as long as we could as they did their homework, ate dinner, and played Connect 4, all by candlelight.
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| From Jan '09 |
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| From Jan '09 |
It was wonderful to become acquainted with these precious children. They all were so affectionate and playful. We wouldn’t have imagined that children having recently gone through such tragedy (less that one year ago) could be so full of joy and hope! But, our God is one who heals the broken hearted and replaces sorrow with joy. It was difficult to avoid their affection- at any given time between 3 and 5 kids were hanging on you, wanting to play or most often, just a hug. You'll never look over to see anything but a bunch of smiling children, giggling with joy! It was such a memorable evening- we got out all the Christmas gifts from yesterday and played for hours. We have to admit, we had soooo much fun ourselves!
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| From Jan '09 |
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| From Jan '09 |
They also showed us how they make the paint that you see on their faces. It’s made from ground sandalwood bark and it made to protect their faces from the sun. Check out this video illustration.
They even decorated our faces (actually just Lori's- I managed to escape)! I think Lori's attempt to look like a local was in vain...
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| From Jan '09 |
Despite the power outage, much of the downtown seemed to still have power, as business depends upon it. Anders and I were alone tonight, so we decided it would probably be a good time to do a little “venturing out”. We found a little restaurant full of locals (it’s usually a good way to tell) and walked right in to find the last open seat in the place. Have you ever walked into a place to have 50 sets of eyes all turn to stare in astonishment at you at once? It makes you wonder if your hair has gone whack or are dressed like the wicked witch. Either they have never seen the likes of white people before or it was Lori's face paint (again, her trying to blend in with the locals).
Even the 9 cooks in the back windows came and stood in the windows for about 10 minutes to stare at us too. Now we REALLY know what it’s like to not fit in.
Don't worry, everyone was friendly, just curious. As soon as we smiled and waved at them, they gave some huge grins. After the celeb status disappeared (thank goodness) we ordered the only item on the menu- fried noodles topped with a neck of duck and an egg. Fine dining, I suppose. Finally we realized that Lori was the only girl in the whole place! The men are much more social around here, and it is common to walk into a tea shop and see only men, lots of men sitting on miniature stools and drinking from play size teacups in groups, probably speaking of the latest silly tourists pretending to be a local. Now here's Mike, trying to be a local...
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| From Jan '09 |
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