Adding some SPICE to our life!

After breakfast this morning, we joined the church leaders from several conferences in this area for our meetings.  Thank you for your prayers for our time together.  Many sensitive subjects were discussed, but the leaders were able to speak with truth and love and to share concerns about their regions from their hearts.  The meetings will continue tomorrow morning as well.

Late afternoon today, most of our group left the meeting early to visit the children at our SPICE hostel here.  We were excited to have an opportunity to ride in a rickshaw to the hostel.  What an adventure!  It definitely takes a lot of skill and strength to dodge numerous pot holes, dogs, goats, people and other vehicles all the while peddling the weight of 2-3 people sitting on the attached seat. But we made it to the hostel safely, with nothing to complain about.  We had so much fun with the SPICE children!  We took a tour of the boys and girls dorms and visited with them.  The children learn English in school so we would always ask someone in the room to speak with us.  Each room has a “captain.”  Their role is to help the younger children with their homework or anything else they may need.  Most rooms have an average of 15 children in each room, all ranging in age from 8-18.  While we were visiting one of the girls rooms, Leah had the privilege of meeting the girl that she sponsors.  They spent some time visiting and taking some pictures.  It was a a special moment for both Leah and the young girl.

Then, we were all excited to be able to spend some time playing with the children.  We brought soccer balls, frisbees and some other items to give the children.  We threw out the balls and frisbees and it was a flurry of excitement and happiness from the children.  It was so fun to watch them running all over the place!  It was awesome to see the joy on the children’s faces.  Several of us asked to play football (soccer) with the children.  Most of our team played together and then after awhile, one of the boys suggested that we take on their football team.  Some of the boys actually play on a BIC team!  So, we had some fun with that!  Needless to say, we won…they didn’t know we had a “ringer” with having Leah on our team!  They were very impressed with Leah (and the fact that the girls wanted to play football at all)!  Leah, Vicky, and Bekah were having difficulty wearing their Indian attire while playing…it definitely makes things interesting! 

Joleen and Amy spent some time singing with the girls.  Then, the girls wanted us to teach them our national dance.  Well, of course, we don’t have one, so we just told them to give us a rhythm and we would dance.  They were all laughing and having so much fun.  We did a congo line with them and then played “duck, duck, goose” and “red light, green light.”  It was dark when we left the hostel, and all the children were sad to see us go.  The feeling was definitely mutual, as we all would have loved to stay there hours longer with them.

Tomorrow the meeting continues and then in the afternoon we fly to the next location in Nepal. Please be in prayer for all those involved in the meeting, as well as for our travel from here.

Thanks again for your prayers! We appreciate each and every one of you and your support for our trip.