a few photos from Sokoni One...

Saturday in Sokoni One

Sokoni One is the the poorest neighborhood in Tanzania, and it is where Alexis, Jacque and team run Young Life. For me to sit here and type to you about the work they are doing and tell you it's amazing may be the understatement of the year. I wish that words could explain the looks across the faces of the children that live here - they are filled with more hope and love and happiness than I would ever have expected, which is somewhat ironic considering the basically have nothing but their faith and each other. Here it is truly about community. We spent time today with the orphans in Sokoni One... there are several women in the community who are known as "the mamas" and they, along with Young Life, care for the children in the community who have no mama or papa of their own... they have built a school for them and also make sure they get fed at least one meal a day by providing them lunch. I think the thing that stunned me the most about hanging out with these children was their desire to just be held and loved. It didn't matter to them that we don't speak their language and they don't really speak ours. What they needed from us went far beyond what words could have described - they just wanted to be held tightly, to feel safe, secure and loved - which is interesting, because while we live a continent apart from these children, and each one of us here have so much more than they could ever fathom having, our need is the same as theirs. And that is the beauty of God's grace and the love Christ has for each of us, and as I sat there today, looking around at the faces of these children that we can never save from this poverty, to whom we could never possibly give enough, or love enough, I was overwhelmed with the peace of the Lord, because I know that what we can not do, HE CAN. and that is what is happening here - HE IS WORKING, HE IS SAVING and HE IS HERE - EVERYWHERE - and it is awesome.

Please continue to pray for us. Pray for our energy, our strength, for the Lord to speak to each of us in the ways that we need. To reveal our own brokenness to us and to allow us to go to Him to hold us tightly.

We will be in Arusha again tomorrow and then head to Legho village through the end of the week. Getting to the internet has proven to be a bit more difficult than we initially anticipated, so don't worry if you haven't heard from us in a few days. We'll be back in touch as soon as we can, and in the interim, know we are walking in the light of the Lord, and it just doesn't get better than that.

God Bless to all of you from all of us!
Anne Genevieve


PS: Happy early Birthday to Anna Hawkins! love Sarah Lawton :-)

here we are...wow

apologies for the delay in our first official blog post since departing... hopefully you were on the email list that received our note of safe arrival in Ethiopia Thursday night. We stayed at the Crown Hotel there, which is not affiliated with any type of Crown Hotel with which you be familiar... there was one rat incident in Ali and Sarah Lawton's room, but they took it like champs. We arrived at the airport at about 7:30ish and left Ethiopia Friday around 10 am. We flew into Kilimanjaro with a quick stop in Nairobi. To say we were all really excited to FINALLY be in Tanzania is an understatement to say the least. Getting through customs was less of a hassle than I would have expected for 35+ Americans , and we were greeted with huge smiles, happy faces, hugs and the warmest welcome we could have imagined from from the Young Life Tanzania crew - Alexis, Jacque, Laban, Christian, Richard, Doreen, Irene, Isaiah and Linus - once we got everything loaded up onto the buses, we went to a local "market" to get our first feel for local African life. Market is a term I would use loosely when describing the scene... picture goats, cows and other animals for sale on an open, flat, grass/dirt area - definitely not the "markets" that we are used to seeing in the states! Our group caused a bit of a stir... picture 35+ white people cruising through the African farm animals... but we had a great time and really enjoyed the experience. Afterwards, we had some lunch at a local pizza and art gallery and then headed into Arusha to the Arch Bishops Hostel where we are staying. Supper that night was the first time all 44 of us have been together, which was really a treat. Afterwards we had the opportunity to share some thoughts about our first real day in Africa and worship together - then, exhausted, we all tried to sleep to the sounds of the chanting monks which sounded something like wild coyotes. Again, the Ambien was flowing... up next was Saturday in Sokoni One - more to come on that shortly...

love to all and God Bless,
Anne Genevieve