Big brother, Big sister Program!

We had a wonderful meeting this morning with our local church we are a part of here in Burundi; the beginning of a great thing! We are going to implement through the partnership of the churches here a Big brother, Big sister program. We are going to begin with 6 youth that are currently going to school and want to help care for the orphans. The program is a volunteer program where the youth will come 1 day a week for 1 hour to assist the children in their homework and to tutor them. We are very excited about this program as we see the desire in so many young hearts to help their people. Children that have endured many hard things along with losing their parents thrive off of positive relationships. They thrive off of knowing that other people love them and believe in them. They see a true manifestation of the love of God.

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Another project that is in the working is a "Community Day", where we will come together with many people within the church community that will help us to repair the houses and property. From cleaning up the yard, to strengthening the fence to painting and so on, we will all come together as one body and serve the Lord in this work! And afterwards... eat a nice meal together! As many people have heard of our desire to do a "Community Day", we have had many negative comments concerning the people and volunteering their time for free. Unfortunately there isn't many examples of volunteering your time here in Burundi, there are some... but I would like to see more! Many people expect money, especially if they are volunteering for a foreigner and or NGO. We are capable of paying each volunteer, although we believe that it is so much more rewarding when you give of yourself for another, without expecting anything in return! We believe people also living in a poverty mentality can see the truth in this! We are planning on doing a teaching about volunteering your time to help others prior to our community day! Looking forward! Until next time...

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Kirundi Vocabulary: help - gufasha