By Jasmine McDonald
Today we started off helping local workers who were making improvements to the home of a family living in poverty. The father and mother are named Donacien and Mukandoli Illuminate, and their children are Tuyishimiee, Josiare, and Eric. Eric is the youngest and he has Downs Syndrome. We helped with some construction on their house. We all helped carry bricks, dug a trench, and fetched water from a creek. I mainly helped with the bricks and water, and Wowza! That was very hard work! Fetching water was definitely the hardest part. The path was VERY unsteady, washed out, and was covered with gullies. Bethany even fell, and had a few battle wounds. The path going down the hill with empty jugs was about a ¼ mile, but the path up while carrying full 5 gallon jugs was 2 miles!! Okay, maybe it wasn’t 2 miles uphill but it sure felt like it! My group had to do that 3 times to get enough water for what they needed. We figured out that one of those 5 gallon jugs was like flushing your toilet 2 times. That really makes you think about how blessed we are to have easy access to running water.
After that, we came back to the FVA site where some of us went on home visits and some stayed back to do music lessons with teen girls. I was one of the ones that went on the home visits and as we were walking to the houses, we saw a group of kids and they decided to follow us the entire time we were walking. They were so joyful and just wanted our attention, and to hold our hand. One of the kids, named Bub, really reminded me of my little brother Kyler and it made me miss him so much!!!!! But we are definitely enjoying our time here and so thankful for all your prayer and support! We were able to bless the two families that we visited with some small toys for the kids, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap. The families were very thankful for those blessings and had big smiles on their faces. The culture here is so different and it’s so amazing to learn how they live and everything. It really makes you reassess how you are living and humbles you. May God Bless.
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