We sang, prayed, shared, laughed and bonded yet again. During our final prayer Gene Schamko asked us to think of the names of children that were imprinted in our minds and hearts and when prompted during the prayer to say them out loud. It was very moving to hear the names of Sasha, Misha, Natasha, Alex, and all of the others during the prayer. Please keep adding the comments, they are very meaningful to us and we are reading them. Thank you for praying for us we are feeling it!

Today the shipped dailed until 2:00 so we got some rest. We have been going non-stop since we arrived and we are all tired. It has been hard work the entire time, packing duffles, carrying duffles, playing with kids, and just the travel wears us out. But there is no complaining becuase we are all having the time of our lives. We had worship time last aboard the ship that lasted over three hours. We got to read all of the blog comments to the entire group. Continued part 2

Happy 80th Birthday Mom (Virginia)!!!

I’ll miss being there with you!

From Deneen

Something we wanted to mention was that we are giving each orphanage a gift based on their request based on need. So far we’ve given a refridgerator, 60 pairs of sneakers for the kids, several comercial vacuums, around 50 gallons of paint and mattresses. In one orphage they requested a TV and Ice Cream for 235 kids. Thank you to those of you who gave us financial donations so that we could do this. We will let you know what the gifts are for the upcoming orphanages.

What affected us most today was the older kids (teenagers). They seem to be more distant, skeptical, and somewhat unemotional. They think we are here for the small chlidren. Our strategy has become to target the “leader” of the older group, and then the others seem to follow more readily. By the end of our time together they too have experienced the love, the joy and the hugs. The reality is that for most of these older kids the future holds little hope. Please pray for the older kids especially today.