Getting Our Hands Dirty!

Today was incredible! We spent the morning in Convoy of Hope chapel and listened to Rick (Corporate Relations) share a wonderful message about vision and leadership. I found myself incredibly excited when a girl shared her testimony about being in Zambia recently working with AIDS relief. She showed us a clip of the Africans singing as one in church, and it almost moved me to tears...I cannot wait to hear that in person!!

We spent the majority of the afternoon learning about Biosand water filters and Briquettes from the Sustain Hope people. The amount of knowledge they have obtained regarding sustainability and relief and development is amazing! As we sat listening to all of the deaths occuring around the world  from lack of clean water, I found myself feeling incredibly humbled and almost ashamed of how comfortable we often have it here...most of our lives are spent without worrying where our next clean drink will come from. We are able to take a sip of water without worrying if any particles could strike us with a life-threatening virus...how incredibly blessed we are. I was even more moved by the fact that an overwhelming amount of deaths could be avoided if we implemented the use of clean-water systems that are so easy to construct. These Biosand filters clean the water to about 98% (awesome!), and although the process can often be tedious, they're pretty simple in their construction. With the use of sand and gravel to filter the water and remove unwanted micro-organisms, clean water is able to flow out of the barrels at an unbelievable difference. Cool! After learning about the mechanics, we were able to work on some sifting ourselves. We apparently will be building many of these for the Masai and group homes throughout Kenya!

We also learned all about fuel briquettes and how these round tools provide access for safely cooking meals at an incredible rate. So many women all over the world are forced to carry about 50 lbs of firewood on top of their heads on what could be an unsafe three-day journey...some even with children strapped onto their backs or at their sides! On top of this, the incredible smoke inhalation is one of the leading causes of death for children under the age of five and creates awful health problems for all involved. These briquettes provide a safe, easy, and efficient means of cooking that's incredibly beneficial and healthy for everyone. All in all, they save lives. A little grass, leaves, paper (and often animal dung!) make up the construction of a fuel briquette; therefore, they are incredible easy to make and use! How crazy it is that so many easy-to-make tools could save lives all over this world. We also constructed some fuel briquettes ourselves, which we will use to cook with this weekend in wilderness training.

The latter part of the afternoon was spent talking in small groups at coffee shops throughout town (mine was the Mudhouse! heck yeah to the Mudskipper!) and helping stuff bags at Northpoint Church for the Influence conference tomorrow. This conference will consist of various authors and speakers passionate about topics such as human trafficking, church multiplication & growth, etc. Our internship team will work as greeters, photographers, and coffee baristas. We will also hopefully be able to attend some of the conference ourselves, which I am greatly excited about!

We spent the evening eating dinner at Pamela Jenkins' home (one of the employees for Disaster Relief at Convoy). I was AMAZED to find out that Pam is from my same hometown of Gadsden, AL! The entire team had such a special night of laughs and conversation. We also went outside around a fire, and Pam shared her heart with us. As we pondered over the next couple of months, we were challenged to reflect on any concerns we were dealing with, as well as our dreams and visions about what the Lord wants to accomplish in our lives during this time. We wrote all of this on notecards and put them in the fire, offering them up as sacrifices and burnt offerings to the Lord. Spontaneously we sang worship songs to God...what an incredible moment.

I am incredibly thankful for everything the Lord is doing here. I can already feel myself beginning to grow in ways I never thought were possible...I'm finding myself stepping out of my comfort zone and facing challenges head-on. There are certainly times I feel overwhelmed, inadequate, insecure, tired, etc...Sometimes I wonder why God chose me for this task; however, I am confident that He knows what He's doing even when I don't! I've already made some wonderful bonds with my sisters here that I am confident will continue into lasting friendships. Knowing that what we are doing will change lives is certainly the driving force behind it all.

Well, we have some early mornings, so that's all for now! Good night! :)

⁷ "Is it not to share your food with the hungry
       and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
       when you see the naked, to clothe him,
       and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
 ⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
       and your healing will quickly appear;
       then your righteousness ^[a] will go before you,
       and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard."-Is. 58: 7-8