Project Purpose

July 30^th, and 31^st

At Project Purpose

At Project Purpose

At Project Purpose

At Project Purpose

At Project Purpose

At Project Purpose

On Monday we had our first day at Project Purpose. It is a center for women working the streets and their children. Right now there are no women living in the center, only kids. So today was our VBS day for the kids. We spend a little bit of time in the morning playing with the kids and getting to know them. We read the Bible story and did crafts with them. The kids had a great time. I was surprised at how receptive the kids were. I can tell they really love God. On Tuesday we went back to Project Purpose and did some work for them. We started off by packing boxes of bras into the storage crate. Then the group split and a few of us went to go and paint a mural on one of the walls. They painted a beautiful water fountain. The other group built a sand box and a jungle gym of tires in the yard for the kids to play on. I didn’t work on the mural so I don’t know what they went through, but I did work in the yard and I know it was very hard. It was hot, and there was a lot of digging in hard ground. We worked as a team and pushed through to make an awesome play area for the kids. As we were working it was hard to get past the fact that we were tired and sick of working, but when we were working on the tires and turned around to the finished sand box, all the kids had jumped in and were having a great time. It really made all of our work worth it seeing the smiles and joy on their faces. The sense of accomplishment was enormous after both groups finished working. Before we left the kids decided that they wanted to pray for us, so two little boys said prayers over our group. We couldn’t understand much because they were speaking Portuguese, but one thing we could pick out a lot was thank you. It was a magical moment having little kids praying over us when we are normally praying for them. After we left, the group had a choice of two activities to do. One was shopping for fabric, and the other was killing chickens for the next days feast at Masana. I went with the boys to go kill chickens and everyone else went shopping. I didn’t kill a chicken, but I did pluck the feathers off and it was one of the oddest experiences of my life. Overall our two days at Project Purpose were amazing and I will never forget them.

            -Mandi