We were given this picture at orientation and it nearly took my breath away.
This is what was typed on the back:

THE WORTH OF A SOUL

Liz Lemon Swindle

When Mothers Without Borders approached me about going to Africa, I told them I was not interested. For me Africa was a world away, "and besides," I thought, "I am too busy." Imagine my surprise when I found myself on a plane to Zambia in June 2007.

One of the first children I met was Kennedy, the little boy you see in the painting. At three years old he has lost both his parents to AIDS and was found living alone with his six year old brother and ten year old sister. When I thought of those three children struggling to survive and the millions of others across Africa in similar circumstances, I felt an overwhelming hopelessness and said to myself, "No amount of money can fix this."

Later that day while we were filming, Kennedy jumped into the arms or the man portraying the Savior. As I stood watching them, kennedy turned towards me and our eyes met. At that moment I knew it wasn't hopeless. I realized that the Savior can fix not only the problems of Africa, but of the whole world...and we can be His hands to do it.

Looking back I realized that my reasons for not wanting to go to Africa are likely the same as yours. We are busy and feel like we cannot make a difference, but I know now that neither is true. We are never too busy to lift another and every good work is known to Him who said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of....these my bretheren, ye have done it unto me."

There is hope and I feel so blessed to be able to go to Africa to serve and become a tool in the Lord's hands. I know this is what He wants me to do and I already know that this is going to be a life changing experience. Our Heavenly Father has such a great love for us and all His children. The words "Because I have been given much, I too must give" comes to mind and I know that I have been given the means to do this small act of service for my brothers and sisters in Mozambique. Again, I couldn't do this without all of you so from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

http://www.careforlife.org/programs.php

This is an email I got from Care For Life about the work we will be doing in the orphanages. This is what I am looking forward to the most.

"Here is a brief schedule to give you an idea of what we will be doing. I'll list the orphanages first and the communities second.You don't have to remember this, I'll have it posted on the wall at home base for us to check everyday.

1st orphanage that you will fall in love with is the Baby Orphanage. We will go there from 8:30-9:30 Mon-Thurs. There are 4 separate groups of kids although they are all 5 and under.

* The newborn nursery are the baby's that we don't really spend a lot of time with. They are usually sleeping.

* The one year olds are not walking yet but love to be held, changed and played with. This is usually the only time they are out of their cribs.

* The 2-3 year olds spend a lot of time in their cribs as well but we may be able to take them outside to play.

* The toddlers are a rambunctious bunch of little kids that we will be needing to plan activities and games for. They love to string cereal like cheerios, color & sing.

2nd orphanage is called Kedesh. It is an all boys orphanage and like all boys
they like to play volleyball, baseball, soccer & basketball. We will also be taking fleece for them to cut and tie the ends to make themselves each a blanket. We will go to Kedesh from 1:30 - 3 every Wednesday. The man who runs Kedesh is an American from SLC who went to Africa and started this orphanage. He will be your new American Idol!!! He is awesome.

Dondo is one of my favorite orphanages. They have both boys and girls. The boys are 10 and under, the girls are all ages to about 16-17. They are a great group of kids and love having us come. We will be teaching the older girls to sew puppets and I thought maybe we could make paper sack puppets with the younger kids. They love to color, paint their fingernails and sing and play hand games. We will go to Dondo on Thursdays from 1:30-3.

The Nhamantanda orphanage is about an hour or two drive so we will only go there once. This is an awesome place. They celebrate our arrival with song and dance. You will get goosebumps and maybe even shed a couple tears. We eat lunch with them and then we will also teach the older kids to sew puppets and the younder kids to make them with the paper sacks. I have a couple other ideas that I may be able to put together before we go. We love it here!!

Asem is an orphanage that is walking distance from our home base. In the earlier years of CFL we use to walk over there about everyday and play with the kids. The ages range from 9 years to 19. We have not been to Asem for the last several years but are going to renew our friendship with them this year. We will be taking Flannel Quilt kits to them and teach them how to tie and bind a quilt. It will be a challenge but we did 45 flannel quilts last year between 3 teams at Dondo so I think we should be able to do 20 quilts this year with the 2 teams that are going. We will go to Asem on Sundays from 2-4.

The biggest challenge is that all these cute kids speak portuguese and you have to be creative to communicate with them. I will be sending you a list of words that you can practice and hopefully memorize that will help you in teaching the crafts that we will be doing."

I am a volunteer for an organization called Care For Life and I will be going with them to Mozambique, Africa this summer to do humanitarian work. I leave on July 11th and I will be there exactly one month. I am so excited to go and I want to thank all of the wonderful people who have donated their time, money and support to this cause. I couldn't do this without you!