Thanks to generous parishioners of Christ the Redeemer Church, the girls have some great new toys.

Some time ago, a local organization donated some computers and monitors to Bakhita Village. They were in storage waiting for the right person to come along and get them ready for use. John spent a day working on them and managed to put together five functioning systems. Today we bought new mice and power cords and tomorrow the girls will be able to touch a computer for the first time. The girls spend a portion of each day completing school homework, and Saturday is no exce

One of our wishes for this visit to Africa is to catch up with old friends from our days of living here. Most of our day is taken up with helping at Bakhita Village, but we are also re-connecting with so many others. We want the people who live here, either as citizens or missionaries or volunteers, to know that they are appreciated. Our good friend Lucy Makgalo is a wonderful woman who began teaching us the local language when we first arrived in 2000. She is extremely pa

Our day starts as we drive one of the girls to a clinic to receive her antiretroviral medication. The clinic is not far away but the roads are bad and the whole process takes more than 3 hours. The other girls start their day with a general sweeping and cleaning of the area. Each girl has tasks to be finished before play can begin. Housemothers oversee the work. The weekend is a chance for the girls to do their laundry with help from housemothers. The play structure is a

On the Feast Day of St. Bakhita, February 8, we were welcomed to Bakhita Village with prayers, songs and dancing. The following day, along with Sisters and Bakhita Village house mothers, we distributed all the lovely gift bags provided by friends and CTR parishioners. The girls carefully looked at each note or card before digging into the bags. The girls were overwhelmed with joy at receiving new clothes, shoes and toys. Even the girls who were formerly living at Bakhita Vi

Let us care for orphans, Let us care for street kids, Let us care for patients, And give them support. Bakhita is caring, Bakhita is caring, Bakhita is caring, She's caring for us.

We left DTW with snowplows clearing the runway and 45 minutes of de-icing the plane. The 8-hour flight to Frankfurt was followed by a 14-hour layover in the airport there. Lots of reading time in the "Leisure Zone." After arriving in Johannesburg, South Africa on Tuesday morning, we soon boarded a small propeller plane headed to Francistown, Botswana. There we were greeted on the tarmac by swarms of ants wanting a ride on our sandaled feet. We tried to capture a photo of