Meeting the Children

Musele Children

Mna Handy or....  ""Hello, How are you?"" in Lunda, one of the native tongues here in Musele, Zambia... I love hearing the voices of the sweet little ones running around with sheer excitement at seeing all the visitors... They are so curious, and a little afraid at first, peering around bushes and trees or anything they can to stay a safe distance from all these strange people in their village.  It doesnt take long for them to warm up, though, and by the time we leave, they are running after us, waving and shouting and smiling from ear to ear...  

"More Musele Adventures"... One of our goals in coming here was to meet as many of the sponsored children as possible...  and we accomplished that... having met all of our personal Isaacs children and then some... of course having 1300 children in our team sponsorship made it impossible to see them all, as they are spread out over about an 80km distance and we only had 3 days here.  Mom got to see her sweet little girl, Musoli who at only 5 years was crying initially because she was afraid.. then she suddenly calmed and crawled up on Moms lap where she just rested her little head on Mom's shoulder for the longest time. The only time she cried after that was when we had to leave. Sweet sweet memories!  .. Then we  also met Isaac, whom she chose for obvious reasons ;-) He is also very young and his family was so excited that we shared his name!  We all got to spend about 20 minutes with our kids and the each showed us their huts.. and we got to give them all some gifts that we had brought.  In hind sight, we have realized so much of their needs from being here.  We think about a child missing out on toys and games and sweets, and we all brought lots of that, and they truly enjoy it all, but  in reality, their greatest needs are for clothes, shoes, food, coats and blankets, and even a decent place to sleep.  If you want to give your child a special gift, you can send a gift notification, which is money that you designate how you want it to be spent... a goat, a chicken, a cow, a metal covering for the hut, clothes, school supplies.. desks for the students.. there are so many basic needs that we can help buy them this way.. yet we sit comfortably on our leather couches and watch 95 channels of satellite while we eat our way to obesity.  We must do more... we simply must sacrifice, at least a little more, to provide more for those that are without!

We travelled a few miles up the road to the next dirt path leading us to Ben's sponsored child, Nelson, an 11 year old boy.  Nelson is one of 10 children.  Again, they welcomed us with a few rhythmic harmonious songs  which ended in them bowing in front of us.  Ben got to give Nelson pictures that his kids had drawn for him.. and he gave him a picture of them too, along with some gifts they had sent.  Then before we left their area, they brought gifts to him as well...  bananas, sweet potatoes, peanuts, and another  chicken..  Imagine them handing Ben a live chicken!!  At least the feet were tied so it could scratch and run! ha ha... I wish you could all have been there with us.  Im telling you, you owe it to yourself to take a trip like this... you will never be the same!!

After a delicious lunch which was generally the same as supper every day but still very tasty, we went to visit Becky's little girl, Memory.. this was so moving! Becky had sent her pictures several times of their family, so when we unloaded from the jeep, as soon as Memory saw Jakobi, she ran straight up to her and wrapped her arms around her as tight as she could!  Memory is about Jakobis age, and she is an orphan... She lives with her aunt and uncle's family in their hut and she was perhaps the most needing of all of the sponsored children we saw.  You could always tell which child you were visiting because he or she would be the only one with a washed outfit and clean face.. they took very special care in preparing for their sponsors even though their dresses were torn and their shoes were too big or ripped out.  Memory didnt seem to notice, though, that she didnt have on a matching shirt and skirt, or that only one of her flip flops had a flower on it.. she felt like the queen of the village, even if just for a few minutes that day. I love how all the families that live in her area paid equal part in the appreciation.. because they all want the best for each other, and World Vision is helping them all through that child's sponsorship.  It really does take a village to raise a child.  It was hard to say goodbye to Memory.. but we knew there was much more to see and do before we came home.

Our last visit for the day was my other little girl...Sonia... Can you guess why I had to sponsor her? lol.  I recognized her from a distance because she had on the same red and white dress that she wore in her annual report picture. She was so adorable.. she had on some huge Miss Magoo glasses and it just broke my heart that they were so dirty and scratched!  When we sat down at the welcoming table (every place we went had one), her father told us that she only wears them as an accessory and not for her vision..  later that day we saw many of the people in her village wearing the same kind! Someone had given them a whole bunch of them and they were trying to impress us, as if it were beautiful jewelry or a nice scarf!! lol... we couldnt help but laugh under our breaths!  It was the cutest thing!  

We had a wonderful visit with Sonias family and as we left the children all giggled, saying ""Sonya, Sonia"", they liked it that they could easily remember my name. We had a wonderful time with all of the families we visited, and have never felt more welcomed anywhere in the world we've been.  Some friends of ours, the Beckers, donated about 400 toothbrushes with toothpaste, and our friends the Carmacks sent a box of hair accessories, etc, and we passed them out everywhere we went.. They were all so grateful... really makes you appreciate even the basic things we have that we take for granted everyday!

We visited alot of other places on our trip too.. I will blog about them seperately...  but for now I just wanted you to know about the wonderful children!!

More later..

Sonya