Glimpse of a Wednesday

There are no two days alike, but just wanted you to kind of have an idea of what we do here.
We arrive in the kitchen at five o'clock every morning. We drink a cup of tea, hot cocoa or coffee. Then we go out to get job assignments. Usually the boys that live in the dorm lead all the workers in a song and a pastor will give a short devotional. It's always so fun and we love the boys in the dorm and we especially love it when they sing and dance. Sometimes Toto, our roaming guard dog, will join in on the dancing with Brenda and the guys love it, they laugh and laugh.
Thursday is food distribution so it's a given that the correct amounts food will all get organized on Wednesday. This includes sal(salt), feijão(beans), arroz(rice), açúcar(sugar), farinha(corn flour), batatas(potatoes), óleo(oil), manduin(peanuts), lenya(firewood) and sabão(soap).
Then Hannah and I went through the barrels of clothing to take inventory. Atemani is the resident tailor. He sews a LOT of clothes for the kids. Dresses, skirts, shorts, blouses, aprons, etc. He is really good and we were having fun admiring all the beautiful fabric as we counted the articles of clothing. After that task we went outside and I was so intent on wherever I was trying to go that I almost stepped on this guy!

It's the first unique animal we have seen and we decided after the fact that we should have made him our pet! Maybe he will still be in the tree tomorrow, the hard part will be trying to find him. Hannah searched that tree for thirty minutes earlier with no luck--I gave up after five. Diamantino, one of the guards walked by and asked what she was doing. When she said there was a chameleon in the tree he picked it out in five seconds.
A woman came with her week old orphaned grandson. Capena showed her how to make formula and explained the importance of cleaning the bottle out, using clean water and not storing the milk for more than an hour so it doesn't spoil and make the baby sick. The work crews had just finished and were waiting around for their next task. They were intrigued by this adorable little baby with a full head of hair and as Capena spoke with the lady they came closer and closer. At the end of the tutorial, there was an audience of 25 men. Good to know that if they ever need to know how to make baby formula they are set.
After our lunch of arvelia(kind of like green peas) and rice we went to Ravuma which is about 5km from here. We visited the goats.

This little guy is adorable but sadly, he has been sick. Brenda doctored him up.
Then we met a lady and her four orphaned grandchildren who Brenda also doctored up with some medicine and vitamins.
 Then we went to another home of a woman and her husband and their seven children. They just took in four orphaned children this weekend. We took them blankets, mats, pots and food yesterday and they were soo happy to have something to sleep on. The kids were a little shy at first but then so excited to shake our hands and give us high fives.
Hannah and I then went to visit three of the homes here in Balama. Our two buddies, Melito and Melito went with us.  The home mothers are so sweet. Ernestina likes to teach us words and we can get along pretty well in conversation. It's my favorite way to learn because we are building relationships at the same time as learning Portuguese. I can't wait to understand everything and to say everything I want to say--correctly. She also tells us words in Makua but they are a lot harder to remember!
We stopped off at the center and played with the kids for a little bit. Then it was time to come home and make dinner of salad(lettuce, salad and onions), corn, and goat with sautéed onion and green pepper. It gets light here at 5:30am and it gets dark at 5:30pm, so we take as much advantage of the light as possible. Up and ready to go by 5am, back to our homes at 5:30pm.
I continue to be so grateful for Gods faithfulness in providing the food for us to buy that we may share with the families here who have need of it. We will finish rice buying this week and then we start the July corn buying and processing in two weeks.
Thank you for continuing to pray for us.