Phokeng Christmas Party

Saturday we helped put on a Christmas party for some of the orphaned and vulnerable children that we work with.  A missionary friend of ours, Amy Stubbs, did an amazing job organizing the party for Agnes’ kids.  Agnes is a lady in the town of Phokeng who looks after nearly 80 orphaned and vulnerable children in her neighborhood.

Over 100 kids from the neighborhood showed up for the party.  The kids first had some time to color nativity scene coloring sheets.

All of the missionary kids put on a Christmas play, with Chris Stubbs being the narrating and Agnes' daughter in law translating.  Kendi was a sheep, which is good, because that’s what she wants to be when she grows up.

Agnes and her sister stayed up all night Friday night preparing  an amazing meal of chicken, fried potatoes, coleslaw, sweet potatoes, rice, beets, carrots and green beans with decorated sugar cookies for dessert. Fruit N Veg, a local vegetable market, donated all the vegetables.  Agnes works so hard for these kids, and puts so much love into what she does for them.

After the meal, they watched a Christmas Veggie Tales movie on a projector on Agnes’ porch.  They loved it.  It is so much fun watching over 100 hurting children laughing together.  I’m not sure that they could understand much of what was being said, but apparently Veggie Tales are funny to just watch.

The day before the party Lincoln drove 6 hours to another province to pick up some soccer balls donated by OneHope, a mission’s organization that is very active in South Africa.  These are to be Christmas presents for the kids.  Agnes didn’t want to give them out to the kids during the party because then she would have to give one to every kid in the neighborhood, and there were only enough for the orphaned kids that she looks after.

It was an incredible day for these kids, and we were so fortunate to be able to be a part of it.