Summer Mission Trip Ft. Worth: Diving Right In

Settle in and take time to figure out how this mission trip will go or how we will meet people? Not us. As soon as Laura and I arrived at Ladera Palms Apartments right after Go Now Orientation we were met in the parking spaces by Sara, one of our other roommates that works a World Relief, and an 8 year old Nepali girl named Asmita and her 9 year old brother, Niraj. Asmita and Niraj helped us carry in our luggage to the apartment, and then it was play time. We learned very quickly that these kids are blunt and not afraid to ask for something. Laura had a box of stationary that she had left in her car and the kids went with her to retrieve it. Using her cards and envelopes they wrote drew pictures and wrote notes to Laura’s and my moms.

Niraj

Laura, Asmita, Niraj

 Asmita notice my nails painted and wanted me to paint hers too. I painted her nails and she kept asking me to add nail art stickers and jewels, but I did not have much and didn’t want to run out. I finally had to put my polishes away. They did not take long at all to open up to us and immediately starting making us play made-up games with them.  For a while it was just these two that stayed in our living room, then a little four year old boy named Samir came for a bit. Not too long later Asmita and Niraj’s cousin, Samikchhya a 7 year old girl, came to play too.  Samikchhya wanted me to do her nails too of course.

Asmita's nails

Samikchhya's nails

                                                                                                                                    

These kids have so much energy. They run around and wrestle and are just so rough with each other.

Also, I have already had some talking about Jesus. Supposedly Niraj believes in Jesus, but the two younger girls don’t. The little girls even said that their god is a cow and that Asmita accidently ate cow when ate school and didn’t know.  On Sunday we met some older kids. Three girls in eighth grade, one of them being Samikchhya’s older sister started fighting for our attention. I also did these girls’ nails. (But I didn’t get a picture.) The older girls all tell me that they love Jesus and wanted to know if I love Jesus too. This made me really happy to hear. I love that people have already been working this hard to bring these girls to Christ. Hopefully, they will have influence on their families and friends that may still be rejecting the Gospel.

These kids have been here close to three years, so their English speaking is fairly well. There are some words and phrases that they don’t get right yet, but that is understandable. I haven’t really been able to talk with the adults yet, but I think the kids have better English skills anyway.  They also seem to come at the most inconvenient times. We finally have started making them wait outside until we have finished eating or tell them to come back later because we are busy. I am so glad that they want to be around us, but we can’t spend all our time with them.

Anyway, that’s all I really have for now. In my next update I will talk more about the apartment and our first week at work with World Relief.

Until then, GOD BLESS!!! :D

Meliah