He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice.

It is crazy to think that it is already time to start preparing to leave World Relief. I am not sure if it will be harder to say goodbye to the people I have been teaching English to or to the staff. There are three ladies in particular who I will miss very much. I have lived in Jacksonville for 5 years now and only get to visit my home for weekends at a time, meaning much of these last five years have been without a mother, but the warmth from these ladies has really taken the edge off of it.

Yesterday I brought my little sister Michaela with me to World Relief. I am glad she got a glimpse into what my summer has looked like. We started our day off filling out a form with Peter Nay to get him a coach that will teach him how to use our public bus. It was cool to be able to talk to Peter so freely. When I asked him if he was nervous about riding the bus, he told me that he grew up in a small jungle like village  was not used to signs, directions, streets and things like this. He was nervous that he would get lost and have to call 911 to get back home. I tried to relieve his stress by telling him there would be someone there to explain things to him and that he would be alright. We then went into our little booth and started our "English class". I think the funniest part of our class was him explaining what he ate for breakfast; a bagel with smashed up chilly pepper. I also tried explaining what sugar was for 5 minutes and finally got up and found a packet of sugar and a packet of salt so he could taste the difference. The two hardest concepts I taught with the help of my sister were - what "favorite" meant and what the word "say" meant. I have not figured out how to explain to my English students that the verb "say" should not be put before everything they repeat. Much of our vocab review sounds a lot like "Say 'no thank you'" and they repeat "Say no thank you".  How to you tell someone "Don't say 'say'" and then say "Say banana". Goodness- I am over that word. I would like to erase it from our language some days.

Michaela and I then went to different homes to teach English. Unfortunately Mary, the young lady from Sudan, was not feeling well enough to learn English today. She is always open to prayer though and I was able to kneel next to her bed and offer her up to the Lord. I so desire to see her whole and healthy one day in heaven. We then left for Divines home, the woman from the Congo, and spent the majority of our day with her daughters and her.

Teaching Divine is very different from any other student. She knows a lot more English then I am used to so I have to go about her education in a different way. I always try to do some reading and writing with her, but more than anything she needs conversational tools, so I just try to sit there and talk to her hoping she is picking up as much English as she can. Our time surprisingly started off with another 15 minute photo shoot of her and her children. It was pretty fun though. She really does have cute children. Her youngest is like a ball of dough, always giggling and her twin girls are so precious. The first of the twins was born with out any complications, The second, however, was left in Divine for too long and the lack of oxygen had some serious long term effects. Thankfully everyone adores the disabled child just as much as the other two.

Our conversations yesterday were, for the most part,  about the differences between the different ethnic groups in the Congo and why she and her family had to flee to Rwanda. She gave me some details that I would not feel right sharing, but I can definitely say I am so glad they made it here to America. She explained  the answers to some of my questions about the genocide and I was quite impressed that bitterness has not taken over her heart in the least bit. She and I started talking about Jesus and how saying you believe in Jesus is one things but how Jesus looks different when he is in your heart.

Our day ended with some Congolese worship music and dancing. She pulled up songs from her country and showed me how much dancing is incorporated in her church back at home. It was much much different from our churches here. There were these giant lines of dancing women and men singing out things like "Our God answers prayers" and not giving up when suffering hits. I do not think Divine could resist dancing after the second song and she got up and started showing her dance skills to my sister and I as we internally prayed that she would not force us to try. She really does have a sweet heart. Whether she realized it or not, seeing her dance and worship was a huge blessing to me.

Jesus I pray over Mary today. I pray she is not in pain this morning and can enjoy her day. I pray that you heal her fully and get full credit for the miracles that you are fully able to complete. Lord I pray I can fully engage in my internship this week and that I am working off of Your strength and Your heart. I pray You lead my days and You give me opportunities to be your hands and feet. *amen*