That first Sunday in New Guinea, we attended the service right next door at Bible Fellowship Church, where the orphanage children were to participate in the service by singing a couple songs.
They have been going to several churches in the last two months, representing the orphanage through singing.
They did great!
There are about 18 boys and 9 girls.
Most everyone took off their shoes before entering the church!
The pastor's family also had a song, and so did our Mission Helps team, together with Dimmetts.
We sang "Our Hope Is in the Lord," and I played my autoharp which I had brought along as a carry-on.
After the Bible lesson, music and other preliminaries, when it was time for the sermon, the children all came to the front room of the Dimmett's home next door for Sunday School. Sharonna had arranged for me to have a story and craft. I shared the story of Amy Carmichael who asked God to change her brown eyes to blue when she was 3 years old--and how God's answer had been "No."
I said how God knows best, and how He knows our hearts desire, but He also knows what is best for us,
even as He knew that Amy would need brown eyes for her secret work of rescuing girls who were temple slaves in India.
For craft, we handed out foam heart shapes with verses written on them with blanks for them to fill in.
They also got stickers to put on them.
It had to be simple with so many children.
Dimmetts always try to have a little treat such as candy to hand each child afterward.
After a quick lunch and a short rest, we started off about 2:35 to walk close to a mile to Aunty Rosa's afternoon outreach.
Almost all homes or businesses are surrounded by fences, walls, gates, or bars.
Just a few days before we arrived, there had been a protest on the street Dimmetts live on.
The courthouse is just a few buildings up the street from them.
Men had pulled up the fenceposts and destroyed the fence around the courthouse.
The Dimmetts had heard the police firing automatic gunfire to disperse the protesters.
It was hot walking in the sun.
I told the same story here, but with an added theme of how God sees inside our hearts where man cannot see.
There were about 60 there, mostly children with a few adults mixed in.
Here we handed out foam heart shapes with google eyes glued on, or drawn on when the google eyes ran out.
Jonathan helped draw the eyes on.
The children sang several cute songs for us.
Aunty Rosa likes to provide a little treat like candy or popcorn each week to the children who often come from homeless or very poor situations.
Here a helper is dishing out popcorn with a cup from the most humongous bowl I've ever seen.
The children reached out cupped hands, or skirts, or shirts for the popcorn.
This little boy is holding popcorn inside his shirt.
They don't seem to worry about germs.
We walked back home for a few minutes of necessary refreshment before walking all over again, perhaps a mile and a half or more this time to a settlement called Kopiago.
The orphan boys walked with us.
These particular plants seem to attract the most enormous spiders.
Here are a couple scenes on the way.
The Kopiago people had decorated the meeting spot with flowers, stones and ferns for our coming.
They have so little, but give so much of the little they have.
It was truly beautiful and very touching.
They had strung hundreds of flowers across between these trees.
After the service, I asked who had done the flowers, and it was this young lady!
Closeup.
The Dimmetts carry a big mat along to unroll and lay down on the dirt for the children to sit on.
But there were too many to fit on the mat this time. And more arrived as time went on.
You wouldn't know these people, would you!
The folk are very solicitous of our comfort.
This little boy wanted to help me up the steep bank. I could have climbed it just fine by myself, but I pretended to need his help, and took a little extra time to finish the last couple steps,
to make sure Jonathan had time to snap a picture.
I was so touched at how sweet this little boy was.
"Are you okay?" he asked, as I seemed to be having difficulty making it up the steps. :) :)
Sharonna Dimmett, Louise Holderbaum, and me with some of the children and youth.
Louise was so wonderful with showing love and hugging the children.
She has such a heart of love, and God used it in a powerful way.
She loved handing out candy, but also minded that the kids did not take more than their share.
More scenes along the way.
We were very tired when we got home, but it had been such a rewarding day!
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