April

On a perfect spring day with birds singing, flowers blooming, and leaves peeking out for the first time - our brand new friend was set free. The victim of human trafficking in basically a hostage and stravation situation, here she is ready to go home. There are many heroes in this story - some who risked their jobs to help, maids who snuck her food, and others who gave her little handfulls of cash, shoes, and clothing. The weeping, broken woman we met at the beginning of the week changed into the beautiful joyful one who threw her little arms around everyone who helped leaving not a dry eye in her wake. She had also been starved spiritually and it was amazing to watch her revive just by being able to pray with someone and holding a Bible. "I am happy now, because I have my guardian!" she told me, referring to her new Bible. I think nothing of having my Bible close to me - several in fact - that sometimes go unread. In the short time I knew her, she taught me so many lessons that I will never forget. And to see the parade of Moroccans who showed her kindness upon kindness was pure beauty after the difficult spring we've had.

In spite of a huge play area, playground, and green soft grass everywhere - where do the children like to play best? In the wild, untamed, rocky, trashy, 'back-40' behind the main residential area. Here they can make infinite messes, build clubhouses out of trash, dig in the dirt, hide from the little kids, and plant seeds of whatever they've eaten that day!

Our living room transformed into a jungle for Katrina's birthday party. Easy to set up but two days to clean up! I'm all for outdoor parties from now on! We had a pre-party (waiting for kids to come) outside with whoever was around which ended up being about 30 kids. Then we kicked out all the boys and had the birthday party inside. Later the boys came back and completed the trashing of our house. What a day! But what fun!

What do you do with a gaping hole in a cake? Make it into a dangerous volcano threatening the very lives of the unsuspecting jungle animals nearby of course...