Rafiki Center - reflections from the first few days

Your love oh Lord reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains
- Psalm 36:2

I was reading this in my devotions my first morning here yesterday as I looked out my window to the sweet mountains streched all around me (I'll have to post a picture shortly, as soon as I can get my camera to work again). It really is beautiful here in Jos, Nigeria, where I have the privelage to be until the end of July working at the Rafiki children's Village.

After two very full days now - wow am I ever exhausted!
And I'm sure learning to be flexible and to draw upon the Lord for my strength daily.
Thankfully I did not come with any major expectations, because things were quite different from what I had thought. Instead of working with the orphans during the day, I am helping out at the Girls and Boys centers, which are vocational training schools attached to the children's village. It is another ministry Rafiki has here for local Christian high school aged children who cannot attend school, either because of finances or low scores. It just so happens that over half of the staff happens to be gone for the next month so both myself and another short time college age volunteer, Brian, are taking over most of the responsibility at the Boys Center.

my day start at 6:30 and after breakfast I teach music and then math to the high school aged kids at their Girls Center and Boys Center. After lunch with the guys, I do construction work with them until 4, which is when my "students" become my teachers with my ever so extensive knowledge of building and mixing concrete.

The highlights of my days so far is the little orphans I get to run around and play with after I'm done with work. They seem starved for attention, especially from older male role models (they each have a house mother but there are very few males working here)
There smiles bring joy and energy to my exhausted body and they can usually get a soccer game or two out of me. There's nothing quite like 40 little boys in wonder of how high you can kick a soccer ball and how fast you can run to boost your self esteem. I heard one remark, "uncle luke runs faster than a cheetah."

But what impresses me most is there Bible knowledge.
I was telling Bible stories to about 60 of them the other night, and they were quoting sections of verses from every story I could think to tell them...and most of these kids are only about 6!

Things to pray for
Pray that I'd have creativity patience, excitement and wisdom in teaching. I think what scares me most is for one of the first times in my life being totally in charge of something with adult responsibility, though I still feel like a kid, and the unknown of what is expected of me. I already feel a peace about things after the initial shock of the first day and this is a praise.

Pray for an extra supply of energy.
I really enjoy hanging out with the orphans, singing, storytelling and playing soccer, but I'm always so exhausted by the end of the afternoon.

Praise
I'm so thankful for my new best friend for the summer and co-worker, Brian, who's a college student from Kentucky. He's a great guy and has really been an encouragement to me so far.

I'll try to keep you posted and hopefully will be putting some pictures up of the Rafiki Center and the kids here.