coffee

Pretty cool article if you are into Sarbucks or coffee:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_wa_starbucks_farmer_support.html

today betty died...

Betty was at the orphanage for about 2 months. She was extremely malnourished and suffered greatly. Although I did not spend much time with this baby, she is the first child who has died since I started work.

I do not know how to respond. When I first heard that she had past I was doing some work in the office. Turns out, few people were told about her death, and her body was placed far away from the other children.

Kerri and I went to pay our respects, as we do not know if there will be a funeral, and she was fully wrapped in cloths. It was a strange experience, as she was placed on a small table in the storage room by the guards, directly below the water tower. Sister said she drank tons and tons of water this morning, which is an indication that the end is near, and a few minutes after we left the room massive amounts of water started leaking from the water tower. It gave me the chills.
-
When new volunteers come to serve, its protocol to get job assignments from Sister Maria. 2 weeks ago Elaine, a short-term volunteer from Ireland, was given the task of caring for Betty. It breaks my heart to think about how difficult this is to the people who have been caring for her the past two months. It also breaks my heart that she has no family. Very few kids knew her at the orphanage. Even few know she passed away. There is no death notice, no wake, no family mourning. Nothing. Just Betty's body on the table.
-

Late last week I had a very informative conversation with the Italian Doctor who has been working at the orphanage for a few years. She shared a little history of Asco with me. Before ARV drugs were available, they would celebrate on the day that no children died. Praise the Lord, last year there were only 10 deaths. Not ideal, but an answer to prayer over 360.

I also found out that Sister Maria was the first person in Ethiopia to administer ARV¹s to kids. (She is not only a nun, but a Doctor too). She got into some pretty intense conflicts with top officials from John Hopkins. They wanted money and statistics and she wanted her kids to stop dieing. Sister Maria is quite the advocate for her kids.

No wonder there are so many institutional problems. Asco transformed from a home that takes care of kids who are dieing to a place that care of kids who are living, practically overnight.

RIP Betty.

visit from the homeland

Here is a really cool story about a group of folks who recently visited ethiopia. We have the privilege of dining with one of the doctors from this trip.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312279,00.html

great race

Here are a couple stories about the GREAT RACE this past weekend

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3087588.stm

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hVS_8-IDIzMcCZhYYpHDRLxTsvBA

around the cherokee house

This weekend was VERY relaxing. Most of the group decided to go to Lake Langanoo for the weekend, but I chose to stay to save some $, to meet with a few friends, hang out with the teenage girls at the orphanage and to have some much need alone time.

Here is a sweet picture of one of our helper friends, Fantay and his PRECIOUS daughter Elshadie. This man has one of the most impressive work ethics I have EVER seen, and he is also super kind basically like a brother to all of us. 

happy thanksgiving

What a lovely day! As I am responsible for preparing the medicines on Tuesday and Thursday at the orphanage, I went into work on thanksgiving, prepped meds and then took massive amounts of passport-esk photographs.

Do you remember the woman I talked about back in October during the raw day post about a month and a half ago? Well, her name is Alemash. Her and her two kids, Baby and Mitu (nicknames) are now patients at the Mother Teresa clinic. I ran into her earlier this week and we decided to meet for coffee after work. This divine appointment is so dear to my heart. Alemash is one of the kindest and most generous woman I have met here. I felt so privileged to spend the afternoon with her and her loving kids. She shared so much of her life with me ­ through pictures and stories and sweet and not so sweet memories. We talked about her son who had past away, about her husband who left her once he found out she was positive and about her time working for Europeans in Addis. She is currently looking for work (unemployment is a HUGE issue here) and has not yet told her two children they are positive.

We drank coffee, ate popcorn, laughed and danced. She is Ethiopian Orthodox, so we also talked about God and how he is sovereign over our lives.

I hope to meet with her and her family again next week. We took a few pictures together, so I will develop them and share them with her. Praise the Lord for this sweet new friendship.



--

After this sweet blessing, I got to return home to a magnificent banquet.


Here is the feast Kate created for Thanksgiving. (shout outs to Asni, jess, amon and nama who also helped). We were all SO impressed, not only by Kate's incredible culinary expertise but also by her detective skills in finding the ingredients for these dishes...

Just a little taste of what I mean: with her perseverance and a little divine intervention, she managed to purchase the last turkey in Ethiopia, and since it was not able to thaw in the frig, she cuddled with the darn thing all night, changing its water every 3 hours until it defrosted. (yeah,
that is DEDICATION!)

Our extensive meal included a turkey, sweet potato biscuits, green beans, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, wine and apple pie and sweet tea - all made from scratch.

What made the experience even more special was that Jessica Merriam's parents sent her a package which she receive on Thursday afternoon ­ and inside were thanksgiving napkins and other decorations for the table. Talk about perfect timing! We enjoyed the meal and all shared what we were thankful for which was a very special time for our little family.

I am not exaggerating when I say its one of the best meals I have EVER tasted. GO BEZ KATE! Betam Betam Torro!

Here is Amon after no more food would fit in his mouth. One of our favorite quotes from the evening is from Rob as Amon is enjoying his first bite of our feast, he slowly and brilliantly slid his fork of food into his mouth and followed the bite with a grown of satisfaction and after rob observed this mini program, he said wow, I just enjoyed your bite!

moments in time

This week I have spent most of my time at work capturing individual images of each child. Sister Maria asked me to update every child¹s file image and create passport size images for their school records. I am about 65% finished with this assignment and I will probably be working on this until I go home in December.

Since the kids LOVE pictures, most of them wouldn't go return to class until I took a few group images, and there are few images that I thought others would enjoy. So I wanted to share some of these posed moments with you.

fun times in the montessori classroom

Here is our best attempt at capturing a class photo. Since the children hate sitting still, and they were about to be dismissed for their recess break its kind of all over the place...I teach with the two women in the back. On the left is Abebetch, who in in charge of the younger kids (in the pink) and T'hi teaches the older kids in the blue.

Here is T'hi with some of the kids during their break.

Here is my precious leaha. Earlier this week she was very sick,
but PRAISE THE LORD she is doing much much better now.

new american friends

This past weekend two of the most amazing couples came to stay in the Cherokee House. The Correll¹s and the Perry's are old friends of Cherokee, and we had the privilege of hanging out with them, showing them around town and enjoying meals together.

Their friendship with each other is brilliant. They are older with 'real' jobs, yet they still know how to laugh, enjoy life and LOVE others so well. Kate and I decided that when we grow up we want to be as encouraging and delightful as these folks and we both have a long journey ahead  :) 

I wanted to share 2 images of these sweet friends with you all, since they were such an inspiration to everyone at the house:

Our new family (back, left) Jess, Rob, Amon, Wes, Patrick (front, left) Kate, Roni, jruss, jess and Angela

This goes to show you how stinking fun these folks are to be around.

Here is an image of all the Jess' in the house. Unfortunately Jditto left
Addis before this image was captured, so we decided it would be best to clip her in.

22 girls...

So, EXCITING NEWS! I told some of you a few weeks ago God opened the door to start the first photography project with some girls in Hya Huellet (A neighborhood on the other side of Addis, which means 22 in Amharic). These girls do not have parents, but I would hardly consider their living situation an orphanage. 12 teenagers live together in a home with 2 house moms (only one of whom I have met ­ and she is a VERY inspirational woman). These girls are SUCH a delight to be around. They have the sweetest spirits and are so affectionate and joyful. They love to dance, do cartwheels, jump rope and play with hair. I am so thankful God opened the door to build relationships with these beautiful girls. Kristin Ivy, a friend from college who is living in Addis until December, is also helping me teach.

So for our first meeting I taught them some of the basic guidelines of photography through a slide show of images I have taken in the past and gave all of them single use camera¹s to capture what they see as "beauty" (the same assignment given to the students at Asco). It was a learning experience for me, as I had no idea they would be so unfamiliar with film cameras. Quite a few of them said there cameras were broken, since they could not see the image on the back of the camera after it was taken. Ops!

Tadelech, Konjit and Lidet, three of the 12 girls who are living at the girls home in Hya Huellet.

So about a week later I collected the cameras, developed them at the camera shop in Tor Highloch (where I am now a regular), and returned the first set of images this past week. They were SO pumped! It was delightful to see their expressions as they flipped through each image. The second meeting was a bit more successful than the first b/c Konni, the rockstar house mother, was there and she helped translate. After talking about why some of the images turned out the way they did (bad light, too close, etc) each girl shared her three favorite images with the group. It is so important to be able to verbally communicate why you enjoy a piece of art, and these girls are learning to express themselves in new and creative ways through this project.

We are very excited to pick up the next batch of cameras this week and will bring over scrapbooking supplies to decorate their personal images.

I am filing the negatives and documenting a couple of the best images from each girl just in case we were able to do a gallery down the road...who knows.

What a blessing this project has been. I am so thankful that God worked out all the details, and I hope that the girls are blessed and encouraged and stretched through these lessons in photography.
Jruss

Ps, if you have any suggestions ­ please feel free to shoot me an email @ jrussphotography@gmail.com 

news article...

I don't know how truthful all the aspects in this article are, but it just goes to show you how complex situations often get lost in translation, how women's voices often do not get heard, and about the extreme measures poverty has on families:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=496176&in_page_id=1773
(article about the baby from Ethiopia that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt adopted) 

photography class

WOW! Today (Monday Nov 19) was SUCH an answer to prayer. After 3 months of working at an orphanage where photographs are NOT allowed, God, once again, rocked the boat. He is so faithful in small things that are SO important to my heart.

As you probably know, I brought 100 single use cameras to teach photography to students in Addis. Well, until this month the cameras collected dust in my suitcase. A couple weeks ago I had my first photography class with a house full of girls in Hya Huellet (this is a neighborhood on the other side of Addis...which went SO well, I will describe this experience in another update).

THEN! Two weeks ago we had a volunteers meeting at work to talk about problems and visions for Asco. There is a new operations manager named Zachariah who is a total baller. He is trying to implement new programs for the teenagers, as they are the most neglected and in need folks at the orphanage. The past couple months we have talked about trying to start an after school program, but really struggled with its sustainability after we leave...so we decided to just take it week by week and have a ping pong tournament and a photography lesson. Sadly, there were some unfortunate events and frustrations between the Sisters and 5 of the teenage girls, and a week ago they were asked to leave (all five were transferred to another institution about 45 minutes away.) Needless to say, this tension had everyone curious what would happen next and inevitability pushed back the after school programs.

Anywhoo, TODAY 20 teenage girls and boys gathered to learn photography. We captured everyone¹s attention by showing some images from the football tournament a few weekends ago, then I showed my new students a slide show of personal photos and talked about basic photo composition: rule of thirds, angles, framing, story telling, etc. Then we paired everyone up and gave each pair a camera to share. I encouraged them to take pictures of things that are beautiful in their world, encouraging them to prepare each shot (as there are only 27 exposures in each camera) and to be united around a theme. In about a week we will develop the film and at our next lesson we will talk about ways to improve, new techniques and what worked/didn't work.

This is Betty and Biterfish, two sweet teenage girls at the Mother Teresa Orphanage where I work. If you look in the mirror, you can see the sweet poster Kerri (another volunteer who is from Ireland) created for the photog class.

It's energizing to see these teenagers get excited about something. Not only are these lessons teaching them English and exposing them to a new art, but they are also learning a skill, getting to create something and enjoying a new activity together. B.E.A.utiful.

On the taxi ride home I was exhausted after a VERY full day at Mother Teresa's, but it was such a sweet delight to experience God's perfect timing. I know this photography project was from God, and He was helping me be patient by waiting 3 months until I was allowed to do it. PTL!

Have a great day!

coffee ceromony

This past weekend I had the privilege of celebrating 2 coffee ceremonies.

Coffee is a REALLY big deal here. And it is done VERY well. The raw coffee beans are bought from the store, then they are cleaned, roasted and crushed fresh. Then hot water is poured over the grounds. Add a few spoons of sugar and it is marvelous. Meanwhile, its tradition to snack on sweet popcorn while frankincense is burning. Keep in mind all of this is cooked/roasted over a small charcoal burner. Talk about some TLC. I think it is proper to share 3 cups of coffee together with friends...which means by the end you are bright eyed and very alert!

The first weekend coffee ceremony was held at my friend Mesfin's house
on Saturday. In this image he is crushing the recently roasted beans.

The is an image of Nesanet, me and Yeshi, Mesfins half sister and bother.
We celebrated coffee on Sunday afternoon after church.

Here Mesfin and I are enjoying fresh Ethiopian coffee,
specially made by his sister, Nestanet.

Mesfin's family is so kind and generous and encouraging. They are strong believers and we were able to converse over peeling cabbage for dinner. WHAT a blessing to find two amazing Ethiopian women with whom to share an afternoon.

YUMMY!

taxi driver

Man! Tonight we had one of the best meals in Ethiopia. It was at this Mediterranean place called Aladdin's...their hummus, falafel and kabobs were INCREDIBLE...and they had super cold water, which is always a plus. The whole evening this live musician name Jimmy played English oldies music...it was so beautiful. He was probably in his 60s ­ and so alive on the stage as he sang his heart out during each song. You could tell he was totally free by his body language and the joyful spirit by which he played.

I don't know who sings the song, but he played "give me the beat boys and sing my song...I wanna get lost in the rock n roll and shift away" and asked for us to sing with him. It was the high light of my evening!

As an encore he gave us a shout out with a Stevie Wonder song and invited us to sing the chorus. It¹s so exciting to see people doing what they love, and Jimmy was totally in his groove.

As the night wrapped up and we finished the last bites of our dessert, we faced the inevitable. Finding taxis home past 8 pm is my least favorite part of Ethiopia. Since public transportation basically disappears after that time, you have to negotiate with the contract taxis and pay like 30 times the price of the buses during the day.  BUT! We scored the best taxi driver in the history of my time here. JACKPOT! His name is Sentio, and he was another Ethiopian TOTALLY his groove. For the 30 minute drive home he made jokes, sang to us, danced and just enjoyed life OUT LOUD.

What a GREAT evening!

PHOTO BOARD PROJECT!

YIPPY!! After 6 weeks, many frustrations, complications and hold ups, the photo board project for the Montessori is complete!

I cannot remember if I wrote about the project or not, so I will give a little explanation. As there are so many volunteers who come in and out of the Montessori each week, usually only staying for a few hours at a time, most people DO NOT know the names of the children. Since knowing someones name is such a sweet gift, I asked permission at the beginning of October to take pictures of all the kids and post them on a board with their names in blue or pink (since most of the kids get their heads shaved, it can be difficult to tell which ones are boys and girls sometimes). This task seems easy enough, but BOY! As each step progressed more and more roadblocks popped up. God was faithful to provide at each step of the way...

First, getting all the kids names written out in English and Amharic was quite a task, as role sheets do not exist. The two teachers where willing to help, which was such a blessing.

Then, taking the actual pictures took a few days. I photographed each child in a photojournalistic manner ­ trying to capture a little piece of each child's personality.

Then it took a little while to find out a way to print the images. I went to a couple different photo stores, and it turns out there is a place close to the bus stop in our neighborhood that does a pretty good job. I can bring a flash drive full of images and by the next day have images printed on matte paper. The images are 2 ETB, or about 20 cents each print.

The next step was finding a way to type the names in Amharic...After asking around, my friend/tutor Abraham was able to get a program, but b/c mac's have super high control and a different system, the program would not function with my computer. So then I had to borrow a friends computer to install the program.

Abraham then typed out the children¹s names, which took a while b/c it was the first time he had ever typed in AmharicŠand since there are about 300 letters, all of which are VERY different from English, finding each letter on the computer was rather complicated.

Again, since I have a mac computer and the Cherokee printer software is not compatible with my computer, installing the software onto my roommates computer took anther bit of time.  I was able to print the kids¹ names in color, which was exactly what I wanted to do. Keeping all the photos, and names in two languages together was a bit of an ordeal, but in the end with the help of both teachers, I was able to get the images printed and the names cut out.

The next challenge was finding a board that was the right size for all the photos and the space on the wall. After getting connected with the right people, T¹hi (the teacher I work with) and I visited the barn/broken items storage area and selected a piece of plywood that was too difficult to  reach, so we had to wait for the next day to get help to get the board down.

After we got the wooden board, the next task was to find glue to past construction paper along the background and more to put up the images. This was also a small hurdle as glue is a scarce commodity, but some of the teachers let me use some of their small supply to paste the papers and images on the board.

Then I had to get special permission to put a hole in the wall, which took a while considering the Sister we need to talk to is VERY busy and prayers for large chunks of time during the day.

Then, after getting the OK and asking some of the workers to help me put a nail in the wall, we realized that a nail cannot hold the board, so we spent another week figuring out how to drill holes into the 4 corners to permanently put the board in the way.

Then, after a few missed appointments, TODAY my friend Dagim, the electrician, took a little time off from preparing the new clinic to drill holes in the wall. It was rather surreal. Since ever piece of the puzzle was more complex than expected, it was VERY special to see the final project finally getting attached to the wall.  It was also VERY LOUD...I don't think the kids have ever seen a drill before, so they all screamed and squealed when the board was going up.

It was very exciting to see a project that was in my head for so long come into fruition. Praise the Lord! For His perfect timing, for his faithfulness in small but meaningful tasks and for the affirmation the kids will receive as more and more adults loves these kids and know their names. I am so thankful for his goodness and for the helpfulness of my coworkers. I realize this isn¹t the biggest deal in the world, but I think it is meaningful to the kids to have someone see them as individuals and worthy of a hardwork and a personalized project. My sweet friend Alias (I have talked about him before) told me that the board was 'betam konjo' (very beautiful) and so many of the kids were so proud to see their beautiful faces proudly displayed.

Again, PRAISE THE LORD!

today (thursday) work was absolutely beautiful!

First off, I have a change of schedule to announce. On Tuesdays and Thursdays mornings I will prepare medicine for the kids. 200 of the 450 kids are on ARV and other HIV medication, and in the mornings you prep for that night and the next morning's dosages. The system is very fascinating...

The children are separated by gender, and then put in order and assigned a number. Each child has 2 pill containers, 1 for morning and 1 for night (they look kinda like the pee containers you use at the doctors, but not quite that big). Depending on the child¹s cd4 count and blood work results, the kid takes a specific and unique quantity of medicine. So, to prepare the meds, you numerically line the containers up and use a ruler to keep track of where on the spreadsheet you are. Then you set out all the pills (there are 6 different types) to the side of the containers, collect the correct pills and dosages and then put them into the corresponding containers. Also, each morning the kids get an iron pill and each night they get a vitamin. Then, after the containers are filled, you go back through the list and containers to double check the work and then repeat the process for the next morning's medicines. Even though there is little people interaction during the 3-4 hours it takes to complete the meds, it¹s a nice break from the Montessori and it¹s a necessary task that must be done daily. I am excited for the small and important alteration in the weekly schedule...

But back to Thursday...So, Semira, this sweet girl in the KG class, had a life changing morning. Fortunately for me, I was preparing the medicine and was able to vicariously experience some of her joy. Here is the story, or as much as I knowŠSemira has a brother, and when their mother found out she was positive and he was negative, they were separated at a very young age. I do
not know how or why or when, but an Italian couple adopted the brother. Somehow this Italian family found out about Semira, and she got a hold of a picture of her brother, who is living in Italy.  According to some of the nurses, she held on to that picture as a price possession­ kissing and adoring the image of her only family. Anywhoo, so Thursday the Italian mom and dad and Ethiopian son came to Asco (the name of neighborhood where the orphanage is located). The best part is that this Italian family came to Ethiopia to adopt Semira (Some countries allow citizens to adopt kids who are living with the virus). It was so beautiful to see her and her brother reunited. They were holding hands, smiling and he gave her a piggyback ride around the compound. Since he was adopted and moved to Italy at such an early age, he does not speak Amaric, so I do not know how they verbally communicated, but their sweet affection towards each other was brilliant. I got to be in the room counting pills as the doctor explained the procedures of how to give Semira her medicine. It was rather surreal to be in the background of such a special day. Praise the Lord! One of his orphans now has a family!! Brother and Sister reunited in Italy! Beautiful.

Ohh! And a less exciting but still answer-to-prayer note ­ today Sister Maria asked me to take photos of EVERY child at the orphanage for their records.

hero

Here is an inspiring article about a VERY popular Ethiopian hero:
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/SPORT/11/08/HaileG.profile/

Enjoy!

football at the orphanage

HEY HEY HEY! So, this weekend's update is from rob, i've just included some visuals. ITS REALLY EXCITING!

A little background: Saturday we had a football tournament at Asco.

I know a lot of you have been praying for the football/soccer tournament and I thought I would let you know just how much your prayers were felt as I was on that field today.

But first things first. About a week ago I told all the kids that today we would have a school wide football tournament, pitting class against class, and that the winners would receive trophies. We split the school into 8 teams, 2 teams per grade, ranging from 1st grade all the way up to 4th. 1st and 2nd grade were put in the lower division, and 3rd and 4th in the upper division. The winners of both divisions would each receive a trophy. And I still don't technically know exactly how to say the word trophy in Amharic...but all you gotta do is pretend like your holding it above your head in victory and the kids get the picture real fast. So anyways, in order to hype up the tournament, we gave each class a piece of posterboard and some crayons and told them to make team posters with their names and the team name they choose. And let me tell you that was a fierce process. I've never watched a full soccer game in my life back home, but I can tell you that Liverpool, Arsenal, AC Milan, Barcelona, Bolton, Manchester United, Ethiopia, and Chelsea are all pretty popular over here in Africa. We had a bracket made up and everything. Yesterday I went to collect the posters, and the kids had spent so much time on them, it was so obvious how excited they were about the tournament by how amazing their team posters were. There was some intense bragging wars going on all week long. Kids always kept coming up to me, saying their team name and pretending to hoist an imaginary trophy over their heads. They wanted that trophy.

So that brings me to yesterday afternoon. Originally the sisters of the orphanage had informed me that there was a trophy "lying around" somewhere in one of their massive storage containers, but after a good bit of searching we couldn't find it. So on Friday afternoon I set out to explore around town, determined not to return home until I found two quality football trophies worthy of all the hype surrounding the tournament. This is where the Lords presence started to get real obvious. I head to Piazza, one of the busy sections of town that is known to have a couple sports stores, and I bring my ATM card with me to withdraw enough money to get a couple big trophies. Well it turns out the ATM in Piazza doesn't accept my kind of credit card, so I¹m sitting in Piazza with the equivalent of 8 American dollars and money my fellow volunteers had given me to rent Season 3 of The Office. So I'm very limited in my funds at this point, and its starting to get dark, and the tournament is the NEXT morning. And to make matters worse, I only find one store in Piazza that actually sells sports trophies, and it's a government store with fixed prices...HIGH fixed prices(unlike other places where you can wheel and deal and get stuff cheaper). I know this is going in, but I walk in anyway, desperate to find some kind of discount section or something...anything. I stumble across a pair of MATCHING silver and blue trophies...i mean they were perfect. But the total price was more than all the money I had on me. So I walk over to see about the movie rentals, not wanting to disappoint my housemates, so secretly wanting the movie not to be there so I could use their money to buy the perfect trophies. And ofcourse, the movie was rented out. God¹s hand part 1. But as I said, even with the money I was supposed to use for the movies I was still short (and if at any point in this story you are thinking to yourself, Self, why didn't he just call somebody to bring him more money...just remember the setting...3rd world country...not gonna happen)

So despite my limited funding, I walk back to the trophy shop anyway, praying that the Lord would find a way to get me these suckers. I go up to the counter and give what I felt like was a pretty moving speech about how the trophies were for the children at Mother Teresa's and all about the football tournament yada yada yada. They bump it down five percent. Still not enough. They try to sell me these other trophies that were much smaller and way less cool...and, not seeing any alternative, I agree and they start to wrap them up. But something inside me just couldn't let those silver and blue ones go...I wanted them for those kids so bad. So I put almost all the money I had on the counter and ask them if they will take it, even though what I'm offering is still 10 burr short of the discounted price they offered me. The lady at the counter at this point I think is won over (God part 2) and goes from initially saying all she could do was 5 percent very firmly, to going into the back room to ask her boss for permission to sell them to me for  that cheap. Remember this is a government store...absolutely no wheeling and dealing takes place in these places...as far as I know its out of the employees' hands. So the lady at the counter goes back into the back room and I have to wait a minute or two, praying that the Lord would hook it up and melt some hearts back there. She reappears with a smile on her face (God part 3). I can¹t tell you how excited I was watching those trophies get wrapped. These kids don't get to look forward to an event like this very often, maybe even never, and to know that they were going to get the best of the best...it was an amazing feeling. And that was just yesterday.

That night me and a couple other of the volunteers put the finishing touches on all the posters, made huge score sheets for each team, and drew up a bracket to show the winners of each game. It took me back way back in the day when we used to draw up brackets for basketball tournament in the backyard. Who knew that was preparing me for days like today?

So today we wake up at 6:45 in order to get to the orphanage by 8 to prepare everything before the games start at 9. Now unless you've been spamed from my previous emails, you probably have gathered that my work place is one of the most chaotic and unorganized places on earth. There is a head nun that has to approve of absolutely every decision made in an orphanage of over 400 kids and over 60 workers and volunteers...and she prays half the day(I mean I'm all for prayin and all, but for the love of goodness can there be a little delegation action up in here). So whenever you want something done, you have to track down a nun, tell them what you want, and wait at least a few days for word to pass around to get it done (no elementary school intercom system here baby) So planning this tournament was pretty much a logistical nightmare. Needless to say I was a little nervous as to what the heck was gonna happen when I showed up this morning. But man when I walked in those doors, my doubts were erased so quickly. I see that some of the older girls had gotten pom poms(where from I have NO IDEA), and there was his vibe of excitement running through the whole place. I had set aside an hour before hand for set up, expecting chaos at every turn...b/c lets be serious...it takes 3 days for decisions to be reached on an average day, and I was coming in needing things to be done on the spot..a VERY unprecedented concept for this place...but everything ran smoothly (God part 4). Come 9 o'clock when it was time for the first game between the two first grade classes, the stands were filled with kids, cheering on their classmates. Some of the workers even brought out the 1 and 2 year old babies and sat them down on the rows to cheer. Unbelievable. The next four hours was like a tornado. 8 teams, 6 games, 200 1st ­ 4th grade kids, 5 volunteers. But God made it work. We found a system and it ran so well. We barely have enough jerseys for four teams of 20, so while two teams were playing, two more were getting dressed on the sidelines for the next game. 4 of the 8 games went to shootouts. It was hilarious b/c most of the time during the week the kids score 4 or 6 goals a game, but today everybody (even the girls that never play) was so excited that they ended up being straight defensive battles. I mean they were into it. The shoot outs were awesome. At the end of regulation, each team chose 5 of their best players to shoot. Everyone else crowded around both sides, essentially making a tunnel between the shooter and the goalie...we had to keep pushing kids back they were so excited to see. It was priceless to see half the kids who were shooters make the cross motion across their chests before shooting. One kid was so focused on scoring that one of his teammates took his hand and did the motion for him as he just stared straight ahead, his eyes locked in on the goal. The last championship game was between one of my best younger classes and one of my worst older classes attitude wise...so lets just say I was a little biased as the referee. I mean it was just one questionable call....it could have gone either way...I just made sure it went to the underdogs...and I may have extended the game twice its normal length until they could tie the game at 2 all. So the last championship game came down to a shoot out too. This was story book stuff. By this time the little kids watching the tournament's attention spans had been pushed to the max, so we had little 4 year olds running around all over the fieldŠI have no idea how they didn't get trampled. After 4 rounds of shooters, the score was 3-2 in favor of the younger underdogs with the good attitudes, and it came down to my boy Chalacho shooting for the underdog team (pronounced just like it sounds). If he makes it, the good guys win. If he misses, the other team has a chance to tie, and potentially send it to another shoot out. It was so close, but he missed it and the other team came back and won in the next shootout. Such a terrible way to end it.

Just kidding he made it. Gotcha. Once he did the team erupted. I had the trophy in my hands for about 2 seconds until it was lost in a sea of shouting kids, all wanting to hold it. I even got water poured on me in the celebration, which made me feel like a real life coach. All in all it was an unbelievable day. So much good came from such a simple sport. Some of the teenage kids helped me out big time by serving as scorekeepers, interpreters, and shoot out organizers, which was great b/c us volunteers don't usually get any interaction with them during the day b/c they are off at school in another part of town, so that was a big plus.

So many memories etched in my mind that I will never forget...

One of the first grade classes actually huddled up to discuss their strategy before their final game.

Another set of girls put all their hands in a circle and counted down before their game started. So crazy.

And of course, the cross motions before the shoot outs was the highlight of the day.

Thanks to all of you who prayed for this day. You helped make what you just read happen by asking God to work in big ways. God showed up huge today, and everyone involved walked away encouraged. God gets all the glory, our 200 to 5 ratio reminds me of another miracle of God coming up big when the numbers seem too overwhelming. To have this day go as great as it did with these
circumstances WAS a miracle. Flat out. I just wanted to take a few minutes and share this story with you, so that you will know that your prayers were heard. You couldn¹t be here to see the smiles on these children¹s faces, but you were a huge part in bringing the joy of today into being. Know that.

Thank you.
Rob Shields