Our Adventure: Tanzania 2012 (8)

Day 8     6/16/12

This morning Bill & I led devotions... & I liked it a lot (not that I'm biased or anything).  We sat & talked about it last night and landed on talking about Mark 4:26-27.  It talks about how we plant the seed but God grows the seed.  A perfect thing to keep in mind as missionaries - we may never get to see the 'fruit' but we can rest assured that we planted a LOT of seeds and God is going to take care of them and water them.
After devotions we headed for the basketball courts.  There are only two in the entire town - 2! And one of them is at the hospital and only for med students.  We dropped everyone off, but Owen & I stayed with marry and went errand running - with hopes that Owen would get his morning nap in the car.  He only ended up sleeping 30 minutes or so, but it was better than nothing!  After running to the bank, buying exactly 2,856 bananas (okay, not really) and stopping at the bakery we headed back to the courts.  By that time the clinic was in full swing with about 70 teenagers!  Frankie planned the clinic and had six stations around the court.  I threw Owen in the boba and grabbed my camera.
Marilyn & Ty were sharing testimonies and praying at their station.

Bill & Peter were doing footwork/defense drills with their kids.

Aimee & Taylor were doing ball handling/dribbling.

Frankie was teaching shooting skills.

Kaylyn & Olivia were teaching passing/ball handling.

The kids all looked like they were having a blast and they were soaking up all the new knowledge like sponges!

After the stations were all rotated through we gave them a break with some bananas to replenish their energy and some water to rehydrate.  I'm pretty sure Owen had like 3 bananas because he was enamored with the fact that there were 2,856 sitting on the table in front of him. "Ba? Ba? Ba?" Was all I heard for like 15 minutes.  He had a lot of fun playing with little Faith too.  Those two are so cute to watch - they always copy each other and get to giggling fits.  Then there's little Hope - she just loves taking care of "baby Owen." She gives him his water, gets him his toys - it's precious.
After the water break Frankie set up a couple games to get the kids more practice & give them a chance to win some basketballs.  It was neat to watch them get competitive, but they would also cheer each other on at the same time.

Whenever they won a ball they and their friends would get so excited - we wrote their names on the balls and handed them out at the end of the clinic.

By around 2pm, the sun was getting to everyone and about half the basketballs had been won, so we wrapped things up, handed out t-shirts and gave away the rest of the balls.  We took a few group shots and realized there ended up being about 100 kids once they stopped trickling in (that's how things roll in Africa (: )

They all did such a great job - and Frankie was just amazing at executing it!

It was a really, really fun day.  Owen did a great job too.  He was totally happy to just walk around the court, hang out with Olivia and play with the Street girls.

After the outreach we came home and just hung out - being in the sun all day took a toll on all of us!  Owen took a nap and he was out for a couple hours.  After a while we girls took turns with the ironing - all the clothes are air-dried and have to be ironed to not only get out the wrinkles but to kill any eggs that may have been deposited by mango flies.  By the time we were done with that it was time to get ready for dinner.  We were heading to Naseebs - a dive in the city.  I rode in the truck with Peter and the girls (rather than the SUV with Owen) and it was an awesome change of pace.  It was a lot of fun and nice to be kid-free for a few minutes :)
Naseebs was Ah.Maz.Ing.  Seriously, probably the best chicken I've ever had.  It was about half a chicken, or maybe a quarter, marinated in something delicious then cooked over coals on the sidewalk.  It came with fries.

Owen probably ate almost all of my chicken - Marilyn was nice enough to give me half of hers. :) After we were done Mary & I went to get (sneak) pics of the kitchen - which was really a water tank, very small counter with sink.

 

There was one (visible) chicken (still alive).

Three tubs of (dead) chicken marinating on the floor, and a cooler of soda.
There were 2x4's laying on the floor, walks 1/2 completed, and squatty pottys across the 'hall'.  This place was (quite literally) a hole in the wall - but man was it oh. so. good.!  After dinner we stopped at the supermarket and got some sweets before heading home and hanging out for a while before bed.  It was a great day!