27 July, 2011

This has been such a busy time that it has been hard to find the time to write.

Maria Casaleggi and Rachel Holper from St Louis came and worked with us and have already left. Thank you so much, Maria and Rachel, for sewing into the lives of our children and for blessing us with your smiles and warm hearts.

Kelsey Graczak and Rebecca Dalton, also from St Louis, traveled back to Burkina with me and they still have about 2 more weeks with us. Kelsey and Rebecca have cared for our babies, played with the older children, participated in sponsorship distributions, held VBSs in neighboring villages, and many, many more things. They have definitely left their imprint on us and all of our children.

Anna McLees, from Virginia, has been with us for one month now. Anna is a teacher and also a talented artist. Anna has worked with several of our primary school age children tutoring

them in reading, writing, and math. She also painted a mural on one of the walls of our older baby room. Rebecca also helped in this project. Thank you so much, Anna, for all that you have done for us and for our children at the orphanage.

Finally, we finished the food distributions for June. We held distributions in six different centers and each child's family received a 200 pound bag of corn and some soap. This is a picture of distribution day at the Sayo church.

Three weeks ago now we started a weekly Bible club for the children in Doure. The first week there were about 30 children in attendance. The second week there were 60 children and this past Sunday, there were 90 children at the Bible club. We are training 2 of the children's workers of the Doure church to hold these meetings. We sing with the children, tell them a Bible story and then do a simple craft or play a game with them. This past week, the pastor told us that there are now about twice as many children coming to the Sunday morning service as there were before starting the Bible club.

We are thankful for this opportunity to sew into the lives of this next generation of Burkina society.