Play For Hope

Hey Everyone!  I am so sorry I have been so bad with updating this.  Life has been a little crazy lately with work, and my sister's baby coming up. I only have 3 more days of blogs left, so I should be able to finish them up between today and tomorrow.  Thank you so much for being faithful viewers of this blog!  These kids deserve so much!  

Day 13 :) 

So today we have just been relaxing at the house so far.  It has been raining all morning so far.  This is the first day that it has rained.  It has rained several evenings, but this is the first time it has rained during the day.  We did end up leaving later in the morning, and met about 36 of Robert's kids at his field.  We took them all through the FMS which took a while to get through that many kids, but it went really well.  Most of the kids have incredible shoulder flexibility here.  And there are a lot of very good squats.  The most rewarding part of the day for me was that after all the testing, we had the opportunity to take all the kids to a restaurant to get food.  It was absolutely amazing to see their faces to have the opportunity to go to a restaurant and get food.  It is something we take for granted in the United States, so much, and here this might have been the first time for some of these kids to go to a restaurant.  They were SO joyful to be able to fill their hunger.  I cannot even explain how great it felt to be able to reach some of their physical needs!!  Just like we were able to do with Regis' team earlier as well.  It was so wonderful!  I pray that one day an Academy can be built and these children can at least have shelter and food.  

So the car that we rode in today was awesome!  It was a French station wagon that was at least 30 years old.  I was so surprised that it could even still run.  But not only that, it was able to drive on African roads and fit all 7 of us in the car! ;)  Later in the day we drove back to the fields on the slums.  We were supposed to meet up with Pascal and his teams, but because of the rain, Pascal was not able to show up.  A few of his girls did show up though, which was great!  We met behind a building in the rain and were still able to talk with them.  They were all very sweet!  Also, I could just see so much  hope in their eyes.  They have so much of a future ahead of them, and they are already taking such huge steps in their life by being involved with Play For Hope even though some of them get lots of ridicule for it.  I am going to miss talking to the girls after tomorrow.  I am going to miss everything here about Africa!  I love it here so much!  Tomorrow we are supposed to meet up with the coaches again for one final time.  I hope that most of them are able to make it because I would really like to see them again before we have to leave.  

On a lighter note, we saw one of the craziest cars today!  It was a big volkswagon van with blue tinted windows and green lights down by the bottom of the car. Today we are supposed to meet Diudonne for dinner, but I am not sure if that is still going to happen because it is starting to get late.  He is so sweet!  Because of finances though, he recently had to take time away from Play For Hope and is now doing Discipleship training with YWAM so that he can have housing and food.  I hope that he will be able to be financially supported soon so that he will be able to work with Play For Hope again.  He loves Play For Hope so much and has an amazing heart for this ministry.