Leaning On Each Other

Happy 4th Birthday My Little Buddy!!

Hope your day is wonderful and eveything you wanted it to be...All day long I have thought about you and what you have meant to me, love, contentment, happiness.....Grandchildren really do bring a new meaning to making ones life complete. I love you so, so much and miss you terribly.

Today, the team is at a encampment giving basic medical care to several hundred Africans who were displaced two years ago, now living in a village for refuges. Even though it is hard for me to even imagine living like this the children take it all in stride. I know what our American children have, all the last and greatest gadgets, as well as parents creating fun that costs a great deal of money. Yet I see what these children have and do and it is a stark contrast. Children here are on their own at the age of 2-3, they wander through the camp with no direction or purpose, yet they have each other. Two little girls walking down the middle of the camp arm in arm, leaning on each other for everything. Older siblings taking care of several younger ones, while mothers work in the fields. Life seems a bit unfair, so much in US, so little in Africa. Some children don't have a prayers chance in hell from the start.

As we finished the day at the encampment village we all knew we'd brought hope and a little happiness to the women and children. The children were all given a rag doll, of which I am sure they will hold on to and cherish for years.