Natal - Orphanage - Saturday

The Orphanage was mentioned quickly at the end of my last entry but it deserves more explaination. Our driver was a young man who is married and grew up in this orphanage. He was a living testimony of what a work God is doing in there. Elias was his name and he was a joy to be with he is responsible for the 12-18 year old boys there. He volunteered his time to drive us around Natal in the orphanage van.

We arrived at the Lily of the Valley Orhpanage in the mid morning and spent the time until noon touring the facility. It is run by the Christian Mission in Natal and was more humble in construction than the state run orphanage we went to in Caruaru but the children were much better behaved. Just before lunch I was invited to share my balancing talents and slight of hand tricks with them and I talked about Micah 6:8 in the Bible. The children showed more knowledge about the Bible as well here. It was a lot of fun to help some young people who were also visiting to try to learn to balance and do the slight of hand.

Another fun thing that we learned was how Cashew nuts and fruit work. The Cashew fruit looks similar in shape to a pear. The nut hangs out the bottom of the fruit. After you eat the fruit you take the nut which looks like a kidney bean the size of a half dollar and put it in a fire. The outside burns and the inside cooks. After it has been in the fire a while, you take it out, break off the outside and the nut as we know it is there ready to eat. A fresh cashew is much better than those we get in the can.

Sonya, a pastor's wife from Natal was visiting as well and took the lead in teaching us about cashews. She even built the fire right there on the ground and roasted the cashew nuts for us.

That afternoon we spent some time swimming at the hotel, resting and then were picked up for the evening church service at Wilma Erie Memorial Church. They had a lot of special music done by their young people. It was very up beat and loud. Al thought that it would be best of Kim and I told our relationship testimony again there because of the large percentage of young people. It seemed to be well received. Pastor "Junior" spoke that evening but more important than the words he spoke was the expressions on his face and how animated he was. It was a lot of fun just to watch him even though we couldn't understand the words. In fact we were able to understand much more because of his unique method of sharing. We went to bed tired that evening. It was a long day.