Capri and Children's Club

This morning began with construction. I along with Mark h. helped our construction guru , Alan, purchase 30 concrete slabs. We made two trips both times loading and unloading the slabs. These were to be buried in the ground aroung the Hospice , for the future patients to have something to brighten their days. Between trips I was able to drive Alan's "South African" nissan truck. It was really strange driving a manual shift with the shift on the left . I'm used to steering from the right hand side , because of my job, but not shifting gears with my left hand.

We began this project with two, then commandeered 3 others to help. These slabs were about 4 feet long and 35 lbs each. Jason C. , Mark J., and Mark M. all pitched in on this project. This was rather frustrating work , seeing as how we couldn't get the first angle or corner to set. Then everything fell into place.

After lunch a large group of us went to the children's club. We had 63 kids today, that is almost 3 times as many as yesterday. It was so touching to see the kids repond to the love and attention we were showing them. It was also heart warming to see Stacie carry two of the kids, then sitting in the floor with three or four. Jason had several attached to him. Mark had an entire herd of children trying to climb on him. I was swinging kids in a circle, and Rhonda was giving kids rides on her back. Remember all this was after working at manual labor type projects for about 4 hours. The point is, we were all smiling!! No one felt burdened by these kids. They seemed to be so starved for love or even one on one attention. I couldn't help but think that maybe the snack we fed them was the last time they would eat today. There were probaly only about 1% of the kids that spoke any language, but I think this helped us to be more aware of the children and able to connect with them even more.

Tonight in our devotion we were reminded that 1 out of 4 of these kids might not even be living in a year or two. The ones that do not become HIV positive will still lose parents or siblings to this disease. It's truly an emotional roller coaster that we have been on. Hopefully this will all make us more aware of others and realize just how much we take for granted in our own lives.

Roger