What a Blessing: Church at Tree of Life!!

What an amazing week this has been! Overwhelming, suprising, joyful, fun, and happy are just a few words to describe the emotions of the week! The teacher that I am working with is amazing!! She has such a loving heart for these kids and knows all of their stories! As I have been working with her and in the classroom, I have seen how much these kids want to learn. I was helping her assess some of the older kids (around ages 14-16 and this is their first time in school) and it was heartbreaking to see them struggle to tell me the letter sounds which none of them could tell me all of them. They are such smart kids and they can tell you things orally, but are missing the foundation of learning which is reading. Some of them I gave them a reader and many of them didn't know where to start reading as they were reading the copyright page. It broke my heart to think of how many books I have in my classroom and these kids don't know where to start reading. The exciting thing is that this is all going to change as the kids are in school now and they are going to hav that all change!! They so desperatly need more books in their classoom and I want to find a way when I get home to start collecting some to send over on their next container.

Another heartbreaking sight is to see other kids in the community peering over the walls of the school or through the iron gate and they are wanting to desperatly be in the school learning! There are so many kids in the community waiting to be sponsored and if any of you are interested, I would love to tell you more. These kids being in school and getting a good education is what is going to change their future. I can't tell you how amazed I am at the growth that has taken place just this week in what these kids have learned!

This morning, I got to worship again with Paulina at the Tree of Life Village!! One of the songs that the kids sang was I am a Wonder

There couldn't be more fitting words to show what a wonder these kids really are. Just imagine that they have come from filth, beaten, prostituted out, thrown out of the house, starved, verbally abused, and some live on the streets fending for themselves. These children have been looked down upon and not given a second thought. The words of the song are:

I am a Wonder

To hear these kids sing this from their heart knowing that this is where they came from and to see how God has picked them up from where they were and totally changed their future! These kids are so full of life and joy. After the kids lead worship, they have two of them tell their testimony. John got up to tell his testimony told of how he lived with both parents, was in school, and had a happy life. He said one night he was watching TV he could hear his parents fighting and then he heard a gun shot, two minutes later, he heard another gun shot. He went to bed and then the next morning, he went to his parents room and knocked on the door so that he could get some money to go and buy breakfast. He didn't get an answer so he went into the bedroom where he found blood all over the wall and saw his mom laying there with a hole through her head and then he looked at his dad and he had put the gun in his mouth and killed himself. None of his relatives wanted the children that were left behind but he did go live with an uncle. The uncle said that he had to go to the muslim church and when he refused, he kicked him out of the house, so soon after he and his brother were moved into the CRC (community resource center) and then out to the Tree of Life Village. He testified as to how good God was to bring him to TOL!

Faustina went up to tell her testimony as well and told of how she lived with both parents in the copper belt of Zambia. Both parents had jobs but then her dad got very sick. Eventually her mom had to quit her job and take care of her dad and then about 3 months after that, her dad passed away. They were unable to afford the rent on their house, so they had to move to another area. While there, her mom got very sick and so her older brother took her mom to the clinic where they found out that her mom had breast cancer and so they did surgery. Some time later her mother passed away and after the funeral, they had no family that wanted them and so they were going to be out on the streets, but Uncle John and Aunt Susan came and told them that it would be okay and they said that they would come back and take them to the TOL. She didn't know what that was, but she knew that they loved her. She has been at TOL since December. After her testimony, she came and sat back in her seat which was between me and Alicia (another one of the ladies here on the teacher trip and she bent over and was sobbing. She couldn't stop crying. I can't imagine the emotion that retelling her story brought up in her. What courage it took for both John and Faustina to stand up in front of 250 of their peers and tell their story!!

Another thing that happened today was that Paulina was looking through my journal and it is one that I had brought the last time I was here. She turned to the page where I had traced her hand and written down everything that she had told me in 2010. Some of those things were: pray she can continue going to school, pray for peace in the house, gets beaten everyday, Auntie tries to stab her wants God to change everything she is going through. She pointed to it and told her friend that this was her testimony. Last week I had retraced her hand on the backside of that page and so I asked her what she wanted me to write this time. She is so shy, so I started by writing that she lives at the TOL in the Heart House. The we wrote: Paulina is happy and taken care of. She attends school everyday. God has changed everything she was going through! Praise God!!!

Sadly, these stories are the norm...but what an amazing God we serve that promises a future for those who love Him.

This morning I was reading and I thought it was so fitting:

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever. Has the Lord redeemed you? Then speak out! Tell others he has redeemed you from your enmies. For he has gathered the exiles from any lands, from east and west, from north and south. Some wandered in the wilderness, lost and homeless. Hungry and thirsty, they nearly died. Lord, Help! they cried in their trouble, and he rescued them from their distress. He led them straight to safety, to a city where they could live. Let them praise the Lord forhis great love and for the wonderful things he has done for them. For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things." Psalm 107:1-9

Tree of Life Move in Day!!

Today I got to be out at the Tree of Life Village as they were putting the finishing touches onto four new homes for the kids to move into. It was such an amazing opportunity to be able to be there and witness this. This morning, we got to line the dirt road with the children who already live at the TOL. They were dancing and singing and jumping as two buses pulled in filled with dirty faced and tattered clothed children who were absolutely beautiful. These children had no idea what they were about to see or where they were about to be left. The got all of the children off of the bus and they current children living there sang them a song. Here are some of the words, Welcome to the Tree of Life.....we are a bessing to the nation. Those words made my eyes fill with tears as I thought about how God has chosen each one of these children and though they were in some of the worst situations, He is turning them into children who can truly grow up to change this nation of Zambia. I would hear different stories of why these children were here, but I think the most heartbreaking thing was to see a mom bring her three children and leave them at TOL. Her youngest was around 1 1/2 and I couldn't even imagine how a mom could just hand over her children. They invite the current caretakers out to see where the kids are going to be living so that they cannot say that Family Legacy stole them even though they sign them over to Family Legacy. It was so fun to see the kids putting on all of their new clothes and come out with HUGE smiles. They came in so timid and in just a short time, they were filled to overflowing with JOY!!!!

I also got to visit Paulina today who lives out at TOL. My parents and I sponsor her and she has been out there since December. I hadn't seen her in 2 years and so I really didn't know what to expect. Last time I saw her, she really didn't speak much English at all and she was super skinny. Today, when I saw her, she was almost as tall as me, filled out to a healthy weight, and she could talk to me in English!! I gave her the bag with all of the gifts in it and it was full of all different kinds of things. She pulled out the package of gum and paused then asked, "is this gum?" I told her yes and then I asked her if she had ever had it before and she said no. I was so suprised so I had to tell her that she could chew it, but when she was done to spit it out. She didn't know what the lotion was and was so excited to have her own necklace. The scrapbook that I made for her was so much fun to watch her read. She had the biggest smile on her face and it was so fun to watch her look at the pictures that I had of her from the past 5 years. She has grown up so much and is such a beautiful girl. She is 13 now and in grade 4. I walked with her back to her classroom and she showed me her desk. I had asked her if she could read and she told me no, but her friends said she could. Teasingly I told her that I wanted her to read me a book and so another friend quickly put one on her desk. It was the Little Red Hen and I couldn't have been prouder as she was reading it to me!!!! Just 2 years ago, she couldn't speak to me in English much less read a book. What an amazing transformation is taking place in her life. I was so proud of her and couldn't stop smiling at the amazment that God has done over the last few years. One thing that really stuck with me today was when her house mom asked if I was the mum to Paulina....whith a big smile, I said YES! they truly think of their sponsors as parents and I am so thankful that God crossed our paths together. I gave her a heart necklace and I told her that it represented God bringing her heart, my heart, and my parents heart together because of His heart for all of us. She was wearing it the rest of the day and I loved the Joy that abounded from her. Tomorrow, I get to go visit Jeany and Naomi at their homes. I am so excited to see what God has done in their life over the past two years

Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures soon! The internet in Zambia doesn't always work and when it does, it is very slow. Last night it took Lizzie 30 minutes to upload one picture, so hopefully maybe I can get a few on there this weeknd. Thank you again for all of your prayers!

Love,

Allison