Carry Your Name: A birthday to remember...

A Birthday To Remember….

Well a new year is before me, and an old one is behind me! To say this birthday was different than the last is an understatement! I feel incredibly blessed to start and spend 23 here at Zion!

I would love to tell you about my wonderful day!!

Well it started with the great East House flood of 2012. Let me explain. I woke up and walked into our kitchen to find a pool in our midst. Somehow overnight our pipes from the kitchen were leaking and created this new water feature. Who knew I’d have a pool party on my birthday!!

My morning continued with staff devotions and then heading out to Mafuta. I have to say that was one of the best experiences. The orphans and students that are fed there are absolutely adorable. They all came up to me grabbing my hand to tell me good morning and ask me how I was! It was so great. In that moment, I knew that the Lord was preparing something for me, something greater than I had in mind when coming here. But still something so great I don’t even know what it is yet.

After Mafuta I spent the day in town with Travis and Lorna doing all of this weeks shopping. Let me tell you what. Shopping for a children’s home is exhausting. SO much food was bought!! Then of course we had to stop and get ice cream to celebrate my birthday! I definitely didn’t argue that idea!

Once we made it back to Zion and unloaded our fully stocked van the girls and I got ready to head into town for a visit to the travel agency and then a wonderful pizza dinner! But first I was given a lovely stack of handmade cards from the kids in the classroom I have been helping in! What a wonderful surprise!

We visited Tutwa, the travel agency, because we are hopefully going to get to go to Victoria Falls this weekend! I am so excited! Then we headed to dinner at a local restaurant. We all ordered a different flavored pizza, and when she brought them out to us, you would think the 4 of us hadn’t eaten in years. The pizza was AMAZING. Best pizza I’ve ever had! The restaurant is at the top of a building so we had beautiful views of the city and the beautiful clouds in the sky!! I had so much fun just relaxing and being “NORMAL” with the girls!

The best part of this birthday might be the fact that on our drive back to Zion, as we were passing the river, we saw 2 hippos!! Yes, 2 HIPPOS! Of course they were far from where we were, but still we could see their little snouts up out of the water!

I felt incredibly blessed all day. I was surround by great people who made my birthday one I will never forget!

Here are a few pictures from the day!