A Voice For Those Who Have None

The morning started with Zac’s arm being eaten by a lion. Luckily, Barb is a nurse, so she was able to bandage his wounds. I’m just kidding! Zac thought it would be fun to play a joke on our readers. It is true that his arm was eaten by a lion, but it is a statue, not a real one. (Let me repeat again, it was not a real lion.) Make sure you see the picture though.

After breakfast on Friday, we went to the Mercy Center, which is owned by ICDI. The Mercy Center includes a medical room, sewing room, classroom, and offices. Nurse Rebecca organizes the medical room, and takes care of the orphans. The sewing room has many sewing machines, operated by orphan teen girls. These girls are taught how to make clothes so they can make an income for themselves in the future. The clothes they make are so beautiful! In the classroom, two tutors teach the orphans who need extra help with school work. There is also a large front yard for the children to play in, including a basketball hoop. J After a tour of the center, we were taught very basic French, by the two tutors, so that we can help the orphans with their school work, too. The best part of the lesson was learning the French variation of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” After we learned the French version, we became the teachers, and taught them the English version. We all laughed a lot and had a great time!

Friday afternoon we went to Orphan Care Center 1 and spent time playing with the orphans. When we first arrived, we sat down and observed the ceremony they had prepared for us. The whole group sang and danced, followed with a time of us introducing ourselves. After we were done, we joined them in dancing and singing. After Zac danced the first time, he was an instant favorite. The girls especially liked watching him. J Eventually, we split the genders and Zac played soccer with the boys, and Barb, Jeana, and I continued to dance and sing with the girls. We are all thankful for the time we spent at the Orphan Care Center because we learned more about the Bangui culture.

In the evening, Jeana led team time and shared what she learned in the morning during her time with God. She read from the book, Unlimiting God, about how joy is fulfilling because it comes from God. It was neat to hear her read about joy, because we talked about how we had seen joy while we were with the orphans. The children there were so joyful despite their circumstances. Their smiles were ceaseless.

Yesterday, I was reading Psalm 10, and found these verses:

"You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,

defending the fatherless and the oppressed…" (verses 17-18).

I think these verses describe our purpose here in Bangui. We are allowing God to use us to encourage, listen to, and defend the afflicted and oppressed in Bangui, C.A.R.

Tomorrow, we are returning to the Mercy Center in the morning, and will be visiting another Orphan Care Center in the afternoon.

Thanks for your prayers!

Heidi Biehler, on behalf of the team

[Blogger's Note: My blog is not allowing me to move pictures around the text, so the pictures will generally appear atop the text unless I am able to fix this. I apologize for this incovenience.]