Clipboard O' Fun

(If you are/were a fan of the show Full House, that title might make a tiny bit of sense for this post.)

There have been some pretty exciting developments about my upcoming trip to Tanzania!

For one thing, this past week has just been full of financial blessings regarding the fundraising. One particularly awesome thing that happened was that one of my patrons (from the library where I work) called and asked for me last Saturday. My coworker emailed me and told me her contact info, and she asked about the fundraising. I shared the link with her and she and her family made a very generous donation. Her kindness and generosity just blew me away, especially since we barely know each other!

Also, on Monday, I realized that my trip itinerary should be arriving soon. Compassion told us to expect more detailed information about three weeks before the trip. Monday was a holiday, so there was no mail- but I publicly wished that it would arrive the next day...and it did! Right before I left for Bible study, I found a FedEx envelope on my porch from Compassion. I opened it right away, and found the itinerary for the trip, emergency contact info (including the names of our hotels), and information on the child development centers we will be visiting! I'll go ahead and list those here so you can have a look:
123- TAG Jerusalem Student Center
229- ELCT Amani Singida Student Center
341- St Peter Anglican Student Center
556- Moravian Itigi Student Center (this one is close to Said!!)
651- Katesh Student Center
812- FPCT Katesh Student Center
813- Kibaoni Student Center
814- FPCT Kisaki Student Center
901- KLPT Singida Student Center

I was also excited to see that center 341 was on the list. I mentioned before that I was making prayer cards for the centers by searching Compassion's website. At the time I was making the cards, there were a lot of kids at 341 who were waiting for sponsors. Some of their faces stood out to me in particular. I wrote some of their names down, and prayed more specifically for that center than others. It's so exciting to see that this is one of the centers we will be visiting.

Then on Wednesday, we got a group email from one of the trip leaders. It contained some information like a facebook group that's been set up for the tour, and a spreadsheet confirming our kids who will be visiting us on the sponsor fun day. All three of my boys- Said, Bonifas, and Elisha- have been confirmed! Just imagining how excited the boys must be, particularly Said, really brings my spirits up when I feel down or stressed out.

The email also provided a little more detail on the VBS-type program we are going to be doing for the kids in Singida. Sean, our trip leader, said that we will have four stations for this program: Bible stories, worship, games, and arts and crafts. He asked us to email him if we'd be interested in working within a particular group. Well, I was so excited to read that. I actually got the email on my phone, and was with my mom at the time (we were headed to the hospital to see my mother in law.) I read it out loud to her, and she punched me in the arm when I read "arts and crafts." If arts and crafts could be considered a spiritual gift, that would be mine. I have been doing crafts my whole life, basically- my family has always encouraged creativity, and several of my family members are involved in crafting. My dad is always making some craft or another. My grandmother sews and quilts, and bought countless craft kits and activities for us growing up. She was even our art teacher for a while at our small private school! And now, I get to make crafts at the library, and help with children's programming! Of course, I very enthusiastically emailed the trip leader to basically shout at him that I would LOVE to be on this team. We've emailed back and forth a bit, and I'm so excited to be working on getting a creative project together for the kids! To be truthful, I was a bit worried about the VBS portion of our sponsor tour. I'm really not a big fan of the physical activities that come along with VBS programs, summer camps, and things like that. I will definitely be more at ease helping kids express themselves creatively than I would, say, participating in a relay race!

I think that's all that's been going on with the trip lately....I'm excited to share all the details with you!