joy part two

today was major for us. what I shared below seemed like it was over the span of a week but actually, it was only two hours. then we were off to the next life changing experience at eagle's nest secondary school. the kids, about high school aged, were having an assembly and one of our team members, pastor gary, was planning on giving a sermon. the classes let out and hundreds of kids came to sit down in a big open seating space with us. they started out with welcoming us and introducing themselves and then moved into singing praise songs, pledging to their flags, and singing their national anthem. our team of Americans and Canadians were invited to the stage and then we were asked to sing our national anthem. since there's only three Canadians on our team, I joined them to sing oh Canada. ya mom, all those times singing it at you really paid off haha. then the rest of us sang our anthem and then started singing another song that apparently I don't know so I went back to being Canadian again so I could stand off to the some. we sat down and listened to other anthems since there were students from Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania, Somalia, and other parts of Africa. some students sang beautiful solos and then we moved on to awards and finally the message. this is a Christian school but not all the students were saved or even of Christian religion. gary's call for their salvation seemed to be coming through to them. after the message, the whole team went to the front to pray with any of the kids who needed or wanted it. we all had a bunch of kids come up to us with all kinds of requests. several were saved, many at least were seeking for Jesus or some kind of love and acceptance. a lot asked for prayer for schooling or future plans and careers. some asked for forgiveness and to overcome temptation. so many vulnerable and honest students came to us just asking to be prayed for and that's something eternal we have impacted their lives with. one girl cried after I prayed for her which made me cry. again. we were all pretty choked up and emotional. after most had been prayed for and left, we hung out with the few that were still around. I joined in with two kids that were dancing and picked up each of their steps as they went. others kicked a soccer ball around and some continued to pray. we were there for almost four hours and had no words for what had happened. it's hard to process a big day like this and even writing it out seemed daunting. so incredible. good thing this trip is so well documented with film footage and pictures because words could never do it justice.