First day with ALL the kids and Women's Day

Hey Friends and Family!!!
Molly here! We had a big day today. We started off early going on our first trip to Sweet Home, the township we work with. Today is Women's Day in South Africa which is a holiday here. (one I think we should petition for in the US haha) It was definitely an exciting day of getting to see Sweet Home and meet all of the precious little kiddos and people there. They welcomed us with open arms and ready to be held and played with and just loved on. It really stuck out to me how happy the kids were to do so little and to just sit in our laps or be held in our arms. Such great moments for us as a team. Kristy- I am pretty sure your little SoSo was there if it was the same one. We will try to post a pic of her. =) After we got back from Sweet Home we prepped for tonight with the Academy kids who were arriving back from their holiday this evening. We were so excited to finally meet the kids we have been praying and planning for all this time leading up to the trip. It was a crack up trying to learn how to say their names. They were all giggling at us giving it our best shot. We played some great group games with them. A highlight being groups of the students and team members making up cheers for their team. So hilarious. Big props to Tammy and Brennan's team The Springbocks for bringing home the win for the cheer. We continued the night with more ice breaker and name learning games and finished out the night worshipping the Lord together. So beautiful to hear them sing loudly to our God. Please keep praying for health on the team and the energy to keep up with them. We loved reading your comments from yesterday too! Thanks for the Love.

Greetings All!! Ryan Here...As Molly mentioned, today was Womens' Day in Sweet Home. Today was a day that I have been looking forward to for months. As a part of the Sweet Home team, we have been preparing for this specific day for months. Our anticipation and expectation of what this day would hold was tremendous to say the least. We had specific plans of what today would look like, but as we have all come to learn quickly, nothing turns out exactly as expected. That being said, we started out the day with a few road blocks...literally. As we made our way to Sweet Home, we were first blocked off by a street full of concrete bricks and all sorts of rubbish that had been tossed into the street this past weekend during a protest of some sort. We later were blocked off by a massive herd of goats that were blocking off the entire road. Despite our initial road blocks that set us back about an hour, we eventually made it into Sweet Home and began setting up for Womens' Day. For Womens' Day, we had a handful of special events planned including a photo booth for all of the CHE's (Community Health Evangelists) to take pictures with their families, lessons taught by Tammy and Trent, KFC for lunch, worship, etc. In all, Womens' Day in Sweet Home was a great success. Outside of the specific Womens' Day events, I was super excited to simply be reunited with all of the kids of Sweet Home that I came to love last year. It was a surreal experience to be back holding the same children that I had held just a year ago and to see how much they have grown. It's strange how powerful of an experience it is to simply sit with and hold the children in Sweet Home. There's really no words to express how much joy and love is felt through such a simple act. We always expect big, grandeous events in life to shape us, but as I have come to learn through the children in Sweet Home, sometimes it's the simple things that have the ability to peirce us in the depths of our hearts.

We again thank you, our readers, for the support and prayers. If you could continue to pray for us we would be greatly appreciative. Specifically pray for rest as we all are completely exhausted from our first full day, pray that we may begin to develop impactful relationships with the students here at the academy, pray for the VBS team that will begin their program tomorrow in Sweet Home, and finally pray that we would be continually led by Christ spirit as we continue God's mission here in S0uth Africa.