A little hope in the midst of a hard day at work

For fear that you won't be able to catch all that I experienced today, I am putting in lots of pictures.  Hopefully, you will be able to grasp what a normal day is for these kids and what a treat today was for them.  

In an earlier mass email I had mentioned three children who came to our Hope Center for summer camp.  It wasn't really until today that I can fully appreciate what it must have meant for them to have 10 days of people loving on them, filled with fun and exciting games, and no work!  

One of the team members from camp 3 sent some goodies for two twin girls, Natasha and Sasha.  When we stopped by the house, the mother greeted us (quite graciously this time) telling us that they were out in the fields working.  These girls at age 9 work 6 days a week herding cows from 6am until 7pm. And not for money mind you... for food.  Their story consists of so much more, but I will not go into that here.  Their mother told us she was just about to go give them their lunch, so we told her we would take her if she would show us where they were.  We drove a decent ways through rolling hills and valleys before coming to this place here.

When we crested over the hill we saw two small figures separately sitting down and looking rather bored.  Once they saw us, however, they started sprinting toward us.

The first thing they wanted to do was show us what they had made with their "cow play-dough". Kids will always be kids whether they have toys or not.  You can't see it very well in this picture, but there are some nice flowers decorating a table of "food".  I was quite impressed actually with their creativity. 

Tanya showed them the bag of goodies that was sent for them and they lit up even more.  It was like Christmas for them.  They loved their stuffed animals and held on tightly to them the whole time.  

Like proud little workers they wanted to show us what they did.  One of the girls ran over and smacked a cow in the butt to show how she could get it to go and then quickly ran over to another to get a picture by it.  

They rattled off every name they could remember from camp 3 and wanted to make sure we said hi to everyone.  So "Hi!" from the girls.  After only a short time of being in the sweltering heat Tanya and I were ready to trek back to the car... although, sad to leave the girls again.  We are certain that we will continue to visit them on a regular basis. 

The next stop was to find their cousin, Sergey.  The girls said he was in the fields working with his mom and gave us "directions" (using their arms and fingers) in where we might find him.  After about an hour of driving up and down hills and valleys, and talking to a few random people we finally found him!  Matt's mom and dad wanted to get him a "going to school" surprise, so we found a nice backpack and filled it with all kinds of fun school supplies.

I think he was a bit overwhelmed with us being there.  His posture when he came out of the house was like this and did not want to look us in the eye the entire time.  Very different from when he was at camp.  

We were able to get a smile out of him eventually.  This little boy is 10 years old and also works hard and experiences things that no person should have to witness.  Again, I will not go into detail with him but please say a prayer for him tonight along with these girls.  Only God knows how to minister to their souls.  We just gave them a little hope for the day.  Can't wait to see them again.