My weekend at the Orphanage Part One

On the 12th-14th of February I was at an orphanage in Lufwanyama, about a 3 or 4 hour drive away from Ndola into the bush, with the Pearse's, Chontay and Malene and Andreas and their little boy Noa.

After the long drive in the rain we finally arrived and were shown where we'd be staying for the weekend. Chontay and I were apart from the others as they were in family dorm room so we were led off to see our room which felt like a ver long trek away. Once we knew where everything was we headed to the orphanage which was about a 15/20 minute walk away down a very pot holey road. When we got there it had started tipping it down with rain. Luckily Melane and Andreas had their car and I'd been in with them but poor Malcolm and Emily arrived pretty wet from the rain. When we had all arrived we were fed Nshima, sausage and sauce and then all the children gathered in the hall  and sat in a big circle whilst the team was introduced. Melane did a session with the children about identifying with Christ and to not be ashamed of the Gospel and being a Christian but to proudly show it to the world. It was so lovely to see so many children so involved in the group and seeing the older kids helping out with the younger ones.


By the end of the evening we had a few of the younger ones asleep and the older ones looking well and truly ready for bed. We headed off in the rain back to our accommodation but between us we had no umbrellas or coats. Just as we were about to reach the gate to the orphanage some of the kids ran out with their rain macs for us to use. To see them with so little but be so willing to give what they had to protect us from the rain really hit me hard and I was so grateful to the little girl Mary who gave me her mac for the night. We trundled back and then Chontay and I realised our mistake. We hadn't really been focused when they showed us the way to our room and now it's pitch black with only torch light to see where we were going. It took us a few wrong turns to finally reach our room. I can't say that it was our finest moments as we realised that we really should have just stayed with Malcolm and Emily in their room as this was a little terrifying.  We went back to their room to get a cup of tea and then headed back off into the dark to our room which really had a creepy feel even after we'd checked every room for bugs and creatures!

Our home for the weekend

Saturday morning we were up nice and early and the first thing we saw in the morning was this very strange exchange happening outside our room's window:

The hand over of a chicken just happening outside our room at 7am 

After that strange start to the morning, we had breakfast with the rest of the team and from there we trundled back to the orphanage for the morning session. It started off with Chontay and I doing some games with the kids to get them up and moving. We found out that Simon says is something that can be picked up very quickly and it wasn't too long before it was getting quite competitive with a lot of the kids pointing out who made a mistake and ratting their friends out if we hadn't quite seen them to try and win! Then Melane did her talk about Water Baptism and a few of the children put their hands up to volunteer themselves to have a water baptism the next day.

The view from The Pearse's room where we ate breakfast and lunch

We had lunch of egg, tomato and avocado sandwiches at the Pearse's dorm room and then before heading back we went into the village a little to get some cold drinks. It was there that was a real challenge. Before now I've felt quite sheltered from the absolute poverty here, as the areas I've been in have seemed relatively ok poverty wise but this was a real shock to the system. It's really tough when you see so many people begging for money and you can't really do anything about it. There are too many people to give money to everybody and so then you feel torn between just giving it to some people and hoping they share it or not giving any at all which just feels horrible and helpless.

After that shock to the system we went back to the orphanage for some more games and Emily stepped up the games by introducing them to the strawberry lace race. It was girls vs boys with small groups of 6 at a time to see who could eat the strawberry lace the fastest without using their hands. It was very close and there was definitely some cheating going on but the girl were eventually victorious which made us very happy, not that we were biased!

I'll split this weekend into two as otherwise it's going to be a very long blog so that was the first half of my weekend at Lufwanyama and the next bit should be up soon :)

xxx