Jan. 21, 2008
Missions in Africa - A prayer request
A dear young friend of mine is in Africa on a long-term missions trip. I believe she will be there for six months, learning about the missions field. Ashley has sent the letter below, pouring out her heart and asking for prayer for her team and the children. Please lift them up in prayer.
Jen
Hello again!
I'm sorry for another e-mail so soon but I needed to get this off my chest and get as many people praying as possible.
Today was very rough as the girls in our team went to an orphanage just outside the city. Many kids in this orphanage are affected with HIV/AIDs. We pulled in and the moment we arrived flies swarmed our van. We walked out into still puddles of water all over, some kids playing in it. The kids were so happy to see us and we were just as thrilled as we walked over to them to start playing with them. Our smiles were harder to keep as we walked closer to the children. We could see that many of them were very thin and malnourished. They were so dirty and smelt like urine, some of the smallest babies didn't even have diapers on. As we grabbed hold of their little hands we started to play games and dance with them. Not all the kids were well enough to play with us so they sat aside. One little boy had diarreah and was just going everywhere, even on the side of the building. A little girl with Malaria was lying on a couch sitting in her own urine. We saw the kids had sores all over their bodies and infected spots on their faces. A few of the girls had the babies in their arms and they were getting wet on because they didn't have diapers on. The inside of the orphanage stunk of urine so badly that many of the girls had to stay outside. Even outside in the air we were having trouble with the smell. We stayed with the kids for the morning playing with them but as the day went on the kids kept getting more tired and so we tried doing less running around. It was so hard for me as this one little girl who is HIV positive wanted to be held and just cried. She is a little bit higher than my waist and her legs and arms are so thin. I just picked her up and held her in my arms singing to her. I didn't know what to do I felt so helpless. I had so many emotions inside of me. I wanted to fight for these kids I wanted to go after everyone that made this innocent child's life like this. I looked into this little girls eyes and saw so much pain.
I ended up having to put her down as a little baby that was held by another toddler was dropped into the sand. I ran over and picked up the little baby and took her inside to get washed. Sarah came with me because she had to change her shirt that was soaked with urine. We went into the room and closed the door so she could change and I broke. I had so much pain inside of me that I just broke down. I held the little one in my arms and kept telling myself I had to be strong.
I spoke with one of the ladies that works there on occasion and asked her what we can do to help. I told her that we didn't have to just play with the kids each time we come but that we want to help. If that means washing clothes or mopping floors I wanted our team to do it. I didn't want to be rude and say "we really want to come and clean this place from ceiling to floor" but I'm hoping they let us do some real heavy duty cleaning. A few of the girls are having an even harder time than I am just because of safety reasons but I really feel like we can be smart and still clean and take care of the mess they have there. I wont be able to sleep at night If I know I could have done something to make these kids living situation better and didn't.
My heart is really heavy as I'm processing what I saw today. I'm sorry if it was graphic but this is just mind blowing to me how these kids are living. It is terrible that these kids have to die from a decision not made by them. Please keep these kids in your prayers! REALLY KEEP THEM IN YOUR PRAYERS! Even if you don't pray, pray for these kids. Pray that there can be a way that we can clean up the place for these kids, that we have the strength to keep going there and helping them. Pray for our team as we are all having a hard time with this, pray for courage and strength. Thank you so much and please keep me in your prayers that I can be a good leader for the team as the other leader that is helping me has backed out of his responsibilities for a while. I really am relying on God to help me as I have a lot of things I am responsible for. Thank you and know that I miss you all.
All my heart goes out to you in this letter,
Ashley
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