Since my team trip is now over I am on my own here in Rwanda. Not technically though. Jade, Caroline, and I are now teaming up with Steve R.’s team. They have a group of about 30 people and we are tagging along to document their trip since Jade and Carline are writing the P.E.A.C.E. blog for the church. Today we are going to a school called Kingdom to hand out the Samaritan’s Purse shoeboxes. It is so incredible to see the boxes being handed out to the children. Every year I make one but I never get to see where they go and today I was able to experience that.
When we got to the school the kids were all lined up and singing songs to us. It was their last day of school and all the parents were there for a celebration and to meet with their children’s teachers. They sang songs to us and performed dances and then Steve’s team sang a song to them. Steve told them about the shoeboxes that they all were going to get and took a box out. He brought up a little boy, looked inside the box and told him what was in there was really great and that he was going to love it! He had him stand in front of his school next to us and had him hold the box but he said he wasn’t allowed to look inside it.
Their team brought 4 soccer balls over to give to the kids so Steve asked for 2 girls and 2 boys to come up to the front. He took two of the Samaritan’s Purse boxes and set up boundaries as the goal and this man Michael was the goalie. Steve told the kids that he was the best goalie in the United States and possibly the world. He then told the kids that they had to kick the ball past the goalie and they would win the ball for their school, but if they missed, we would keep the ball. So the first kid comes up, he goes to kick the ball and Steve pushes the ball out of the way with his foot before he got a chance to kick it and the goalie drops to the ground in the fetal position. It was really funny. He then told the kid he needed to go get some advice on kicking the ball. He let him kick it again and when he did “the world’s best goalie” looked up the other direction and completely missed the block so they got to keep the ball. The next kid comes up and it is a girl. She proceeds to kick it and Steve moves it out of the way again. When he finally let her kick it, the goalie runs away. Everyone laughed and then he brought up a little boy to kick. But this time they used Michael’s son, little Michael as the goalie since he and the 2 kids kicking were about the same size. The exact same thing happened two more times. Needless to say they all won the balls for the school.
Now back to the little boy holding the shoebox, Steve finally allowed him to open the box, but only after Steve went though it first hiding it from the kids and making a really big deal out of it. Everyone laughed but the boy finally got his box of gifts. So they sent the kids to their classrooms and divided the boxes up by the particular age groups and we started handing them out. The top five kids in each classroom were rewarded with two shoeboxes and the rest of the kids all got one box. They were all so excited. They were jumping up and down and yelling and laughing. Comparing the gifts in their boxes and showing them all off. Most of the boxes contained candy and so many of the kids tried to share their candy with us. They are so sweet! Being so poor and having so little these boxes meant so much to them and they have such big hearts that they try and share what little they have with us. We all politely declined though but played with them and their new toys.
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