Faithful readers, some of you have written to check on us because we haven’t written anything in a few days.  We promise nothing is wrong, we are just waiting for our web developer to give us the green light that the site has been migrated to its new location.  Before that, he was needing to copy everything on the site, and move it, and we didn’t want to keep adding new things to give him more work than he already is doing.  As far as we can tell, the move happened on Saturday, but true to the laws of living in Zambia, it isn’t working properly yet.  A fellow missionary has called what happens when you try to accomplish anything in a timely fashion, especially if it includes any governmental office, being ZAMBOOZLED.  So far, we have been Zamboozled with our work visa, our Toyota truck, and our new internet service at our new home.  Many of you know that we’ve lived in 5 places since January of this year, and we are very ready to be settled for a little while.  We have found a wonderful home in the neighborhood called Roma, near to many places we have already served in Lusaka, and it will be a terrific spot to train people to teach and work with orphans.  We have paid the deposit for the next three months.  We have started to purchase, as inexpensively as we possibly can, all the most necessary items for life in that home, and today we went to be there while they installed our internet.  But, of course, the Zamboozling happened, and they have NO modems (even though we paid for a whole year of internet service last week, with no mention of this).  So, we have a clean, newly painted, simple home, ready for us to move in, WITH a great big branch for a swing for Mollie, and fruit trees of all varieties, BUT no way to communicate with all of you if we choose to move in on July 1st, Thursday, which was the plan until we found this out.  We will let you know what we decide.  So between our impending move, our impending lack of internet availability at all times, and our constant state of zamboozlement, please do not fear if there are some gaps between our communications with you.  Thank you for your care.  Please pray that we would be patient with the delays and inopportune mishaps of life here.  We are grateful for each of you who support us, and pray for us.  Thank you!

Today was the realization of a dream we didn’t even know how to put into words.  The little guy we met first, so, to be redundantly clear, the very first child with a disability we met in Lusaka’s name is Evidence.  We didn’t post his name before, wanting to be protective of his identity.  As we met with his family, and showed them exercises to do with his tight limbs, and gave them books to read to him to stimulate his mind, and found some little toys here to buy him so that he could play (little beanie babies, balls, and blocks), all that time, we had been working to find an ethical carpenter, who would build us an Adaptive Chair so that he would be able to sit up straight, breathe, work, and eat without needing to be held in someone’s lap, or slouched into a couch.  Sunday our wonderful carpenter Manasseh called to say the chair was ready, we went to pick it up, happily surprised at the tremendous workmanship (watch out, Rifton!), and then went to Evidence’s family’s compound to surprise them and drop it off.  They were happy beyond words, and the chair fits him well.  It will provide him stability, and so much more opportunity than lying prone on a couch all day would do.  We will have a tray for the top made, as well.

But more than this, God’s call on our lives was hard to see when we were on the other side of the ocean.  I couldn’t picture the need, and specifically how we could be used to meet that need. I could picture it in generalities, millions of kids who have cognitive or intellectual disabilities, and millions of those-orphaned or soon-to-be-orphaned. But in God’s most merciful grace, we are able to see in the face of one little boy, and more specifically, his name, what God has called us to, and why we are here.  This family hasn’t had any supports for their son, any therapies, any schooling, any welcoming to church, or any maids who will work in their home with them (a given here if you work, at $5 per day for a typical housekeeper/babysitter) and watch Evidence.  His parents said yesterday there were no words for their thankfulness to us.  So, thank YOU, our supporters, for giving this one boy and his family the gift of hope, of stability to sit and work and eat, and be an individual in this family that loves him so.  And, we thank God for the Evidence of His call on our lives at this point.

Many of you who faithfully read this website know how much our Mollie loves guacamole and anything Mexican that goes with it- salsa, rice, beans, chips, burritos, quesadillas.  Well, many of these things are available here, as long as you are willing to make everything from scratch.  Except tortilla chips.  But, on the positive side, avocados are gigantic, and only about a dollar, so, to compare with the US, it is like buying a whole bag of avocados at Sam’s Club for 5-7$, for the same amount of guacamole!  Happy Mollie!  We’ve put them in salad, on sandwiches, on burgers, and had lots of rice and beans and guacamole.  So, we thought posting this picture of Mollie with a handful of just-purchased avocados would be fun for you.  The whole armload cost us $4 USD.  Amazing, huh?  I wish I could send them through the web to you, ’cause I would.

Musings about things that matter, in the US and in Zambia.  Just ramblings, really.  In the US, accomplishments, organization, and timeliness count.  In Zambia, people matter more than accomplishments, and asking about a person and his family is the way to start EVERY conversation.  It doesn’t matter whether you are applying for a work visa, or checking out at a store, or meeting someone who works on your property, this is an important part of every conversation.  In the US, people get frustrated (very much including me) about inefficiency.  In Zambia it is a given that things will take time, and people just expect it.  In the US most people wear a watch, or have a cellphone with the time on it, and schedule their day according to time.  In Zambia, people don’t wear watches, wake up with the sun (6 am), walk to work, catch buses, and do all their daily business completely unscheduled.  Buses just come at regular intervals, not at specific times.  In the US, people talk about what they want to accomplish in the next week, or in their lifetime.  In Zambia people don’t talk about their hopes and dreams, they are just working for the next bag of Nshima.  The average lifespan here is 38 years, so people aren’t dreaming about retirement.  In the US, we can’t put our bare hands into burning charcoal to move the charcoal around to cook more evenly.  In Zambia, we have seen this done!  No blisters, no pain, and really good food after all the charcoal shifting.  In the US, we don’t use our teeth to rip off the hard outside of sugar cane to expose the soft, juicy, inner core, or break the cane in one deft movement over our knee.  In Zambia, this is an inexpensive treat, and even children can do both of these tasks!  In the US, we don’t burn brush on the side of the road, for fear of forest fires, and here it is regularly done, even though it hasn’t rained even once in the 6 weeks we’ve been here.  (Keeps snakes away from where people walk on the sides of the roads!) In the US, we don’t burn trash, ever. In Zambia, every day, people burn trash, and the burning smell is starting to become normal to our noses, and not so odd.  In the US, people only dress as nicely as they have to to get a job done, and love ‘dress down’ days.  In Zambia, those who have clothes, and have a job, are so proud of those facts that they dress to the hilt, and look very dapper, or lovely, walking one hour each way to work in a suit or dress and heels.  In the US, people diet and pay money to be slimmer.  In Zambia, being fat is an honor.  It means you are wealthy enough to have more than just enough to eat.  In the US, the only people you see walking usually are walking for exercise.  In Zambia, people walk everywhere, and every road, every crosswalk, and even car lanes are filled with people walking.  By the hundreds, and thousands in the mornings and afternoons.  Most people don’t own cars, and use buses when they go more than an hour’s walk from home.  Just some differences.  None right, and none wrong.  Just really different!

Special Hope Network, by God’s providence, today “happened” to find a tremendous networking potential, through a dear friend here in Lusaka.  There is an organization here that has been training volunteer ‘teachers’.  They go into the compounds, work with parents of children who have special needs that aren’t welcomed into schools, with the purpose of training them to work with their own child.  I asked about the follow-through, and how this works week after week after week.  The director of this program said that the ‘teachers’ are VOLUNTEERS!! They aren’t paid, so the follow-through isn’t very reliable.  It varies, depending on the compound, and the volunteer, and the supervisor, but, as a whole, the system isn’t working as well as they had planned. So, maybe we can help with this.  The most well-attended meetings are the ones where the Ministry of Education offers a travel fee (to cover their travel to get to the meeting) of $50,000 KW, which is about $10.  So, it seems that if these teachers were paid to do this traveling teaching, they would show up.  Please pray with us for wisdom for how to partner with this tremendous group of people.

This group has created a training manual!!! And, they gave me one, so I can see what is being taught and trained for both parents and teachers in this city.   They were excited about our presence here, and what it could mean for the multiplication of their work with orphans who have intellectual disability, and I was excited about meeting them, and seeing their work.  They are in the process of creating THREE sensory integration centers for children with autism and sensory issues, which will be amazing.  We will visit this classroom in the next few days (tomorrow we need to deal with vehicle issues, so we probably won’t be able to go back to this school), and I’ll write more.

They’ve had 1,000 of their 1,035 chickens stolen, slowly, over the past weeks.  If anyone has an infrared videocamera so that they could catch the nighttime marauder swiping chickens from orphans, we would love to donate it to them!  They use the chickens for meat, and eggs, and this is a huge loss to them.

Accompanying our transition to Zambia, we are also migrating all of our online giving to an newer, more efficient system.  We apologize for the delay in getting the new system in place, and for any troubles you may come across while we are in progress.  Please let us know if you have any specific issues, and we will work to address them right away!  We will update you when everything has been migrated and the new system is up and running.  Thanks for being patient with us and for your continued support of Special Hope.

During this time, our Special Hope email addresses (info@specialhopenetwork.com, eric@specialhopenetwork.com, and holly@specialhopenetwork.com) will not be in use- please direct all comments and questions to us at magmolsam@gmail.com.  Thanks!

Also, we want to make sure to point you to our ‘e-News and Updates’ page, where we will be recording a daily (or almost daily )  log of our activities.  Check out quick details of what the Lord is doing!

As we drive along the streets of Lusaka, there are many people (many older ladies), sitting near piles of quarts-looking rocks that you might use for a garden path, or a driveway, if you chose not to use pavement.  Today we asked a friend how much one might make for pounding large rocks into smaller rocks all day, every day, with your bare hands.  He said one wheelbarrow-full is worth about $2.  So, if you actually sell your wheelbarrow-full, you earn $2 for working all day breaking up large rocks into smaller rocks.  If you don’t sell your wheelbarrow-full, you worked your fingers to the bone for nothing, all day.  It is amazing to me how many people are out of work, and how many people work for almost nothing, because working for almost nothing is much better than working for nothing.  Please pray for our family, since we look so wealthy (our skin color has something to do with that, and the fact that we are driving a car, even though borrowed adds to the ‘look’), that we would be wise in how we shop, to support the folks literally working their fingers to the bone to provide for their families, vs. supporting the large groceries and stores that are simpler for us.  We want to be faithful with what our supporters have given, so that we, in turn, support those who are working hard to provide for their families.

When Jonathan Edwards was writing one of his most famous series of sermons on 1 Corinthians 13, he struggled over how to describe in english the very practical outflow of what it looked like for Christians to love.  And so it was that he intentionally chose the word charity to describe the particular kind of love Paul was expounding in this chapter.  The published sermons bear the title ‘Charity and its Fruits’.  This is particularly interesting, when looked at in light of my days on Tuesday and Thursday.  I will try to describe in words as best I can, because it would have been inappropriate of me to take pictures of what I was seeing.  I am sure that the mental picture I have in my mind will be there for life, and I hope I can do justice to the pictures embedded there.

To back up a bit, the part of those two days I am going to highlight for you is the afternoon on Thursday, when Beth and I went to pick up Charity and her son, to go try to find shoes to fit over the braces I had picked up with Charity on Tuesday afternoon.   She is naturally very quiet, and each time we have spent time together, I have to ask lots of questions to draw her out, and learn all I can from her experiences.  So, as we drove on Tuesday, I had asked her how her husband’s job was going (he is a ‘driver’ for a Zambian lawyer and his family).  She, very nonchalantly told me that he hadn’t been paid in over three months.  Those of you who know me well (both the New Jersey native part, and the Holbrook part), know that the injustice of that rose up in me, and I, very UN-nonchalantly said “THREE MONTHS???? Why does he keep going to work?”.  And she replied, “well, he has a job, and each day the lawyer promises to pay him the next day” (jobs are like gold, and not a given for a man in Lusaka).  So, of course, as a mother and wife, the next thing I thought of was food and bills.  “How do you buy food, and pay your bills, Charity?”, I asked.  And, she smiled rather demurely, not angrily at all, and said, their extended family helps them.  I had, at this point, dropped them off and picked them up at what I thought was their home three times.  It looked like a typical compound house, cement brick walls, dirt yard, windows with bars over them, clothesline rope across the yard with clothes hanging on them, and one rag rug outside the front door.  Very sparse, very organized, and very ‘normal’ for 99% of the population of Zambia.  She had already told me that she swept the yard every morning when her husband went to work, and the dirt WAS very smooth. So, I thought her family must either live with them, or help them pay the land rent, because the house looked ample.

Fast forward to Thursday, Beth is driving, and Charity and son are in the front seat, and I am in the back.  Beth is asking Charity questions, and she is quietly answering some of them, and some of them, she just doesn’t even answer.  So, I ask if her husband has been paid yet, or not.  She said no, and now, for those of you who know Beth well (who, by the way, has no New Jersey, or Holbrook in her, but does have a really good gene for injustice well-bred into her soul) know that we BOTH screamed, which made Charity giggle a nervous little giggle.  When I offered that Beth and I could go to the lawyer, and ask for the pay for her husband, she really liked that.  Charity then said very quietly, almost under her breath, “he is going to resign on Sunday”. I asked what he was planning to do, and she said he didn’t know.  When asked what he does well, or what he is schooled in, the only answer she gave was that he likes mechanics.

This long drawn-out picture is the set-up for the next part.  My brain started working through the fact that this family has had no income, even though her husband has worked EVERY day except Sundays for the past four months, and that she and her son go out to buy charcoal from a distributor, and, on a good day, can earn 25,000 KW, which is approximately $5.  I started trying to picture MY family living on $5 per day.  How do you pay your rent, your electric bill, your water bill, and your food bill (forget medical care, schooling, savings, a car, car insurance, life insurance, vacations, or anything else we think of as necessities)?  How do you make it?  So, while Beth and Charity and I were at the stores buying her son shoes for his braces (remember, paid for by a SHN donor specifically for this need), I realized we could go to ShopRite, and buy her some food with the money left over from the money we estimated the braces and shoes would cost and the difference between that and the actual cost.  We bought nshima (25 kg bag), milk, fruit, potatoes, one little chicken, some bread, peanut butter, sugar, and a few other complete necessities.  I asked her what would be a treat for her, and she looked puzzled.  I reiterated my question in two other ways, asking, if I could buy her something special just for her, like a gift, what would it be?  A chocolate bar?  Something to read?  Etc… She picked out 2 plates.  One for her, and one for her husband.  She picked out one tiny pack of cookies, and then when we pushed her for any other needs (realizing that ‘treats’ aren’t ‘treats’ if you don’t have the necessities of life), Beth and she walked down the ceramic aisle, and picked out one mug for each of them, and two more small plates for their son.  (Nothing cost more than about $2 each!)

As we are doing this, her son is ABSOLUTELY ENAMORED with the shopping cart.  He has never been in one, and he is 4 yrs, 2 months old.  Can you imagine?  They have only ever bought from the tiny little lean-to-style markets in their ‘neighborhood’, and only what is absolutely necessary.  No impulse buying here.  We paid for her food, and walked out and are almost to the parking lot when I realize that they have no car, and never leave their home, or neighborhood.  So, rather than go home and get back to doing what needs to be done, I deliberately slow down and offer her a drink (after our whole afternoon at the Italian Hospital with no snack, I have now officially learned my lesson to never go anywhere without a snack tucked in my bag), and she very demurely agrees that she has nothing to get home for.  Beth, Charity, our cute boy, and I all sit at an outside table near a construction site, where the boy could watch the bulldozers and cranes work.  He was utterly fascinated, and could have sat there all day.  Charity, too.  But, alas, I do have a family that even though they can’t tell time well, absolutely know when Mom isn’t home in time to make a meal, so we had to go, fight the traffic to drive them home.  When we got into their compound, Beth stayed with the vehicle (not too safe to leave it alone and full of food when folks have such need), and I carried the bags into their home, surprised that Charity started to lead me to a side door.  As we go along the side of the home, the dirt is swept very neatly, and the stones are placed just so to make a path.  We walk into an indentation in the side of the home which leads us into a very dark hallway (going back toward the front of the house), and very shortly we come to an open cement doorway, with a filmy piece of fabric hanging over the door.  Charity says to me, “Here is my house!”, and when I walk in I realize it is ONE ROOM.  Her husband Aliston, herself, and her son eat, sleep and spend whole days inside one room, which is painted cement (and dark paint, at that), organized and neat, but so tiny.  She cooks outside on a charcoal cooker, yet I see very little food around.  They don’t have a stove or a refrigerator, or a washer, or any room for our little guy to start to walk!  I take it all in as I put the food down, and go outside to trade with Beth so she can go see.  By this time, she has a small entourage of little girls around her talking with her.  We trade, I stand guard, and she goes in.  As we leave, Charity is tremendously thankful, and says more words than I have heard in two full days with her.  Our little guy cries (because he has had such fun!), and Beth and I are both quite speechless (which by itself is a near miracle…).

How do we ever put into words the size and brightness of the houses we are used to, and the equipment of convenience we are used to, in comparison to a family that has no income, no electricity, no stove, no refrigerator, no money to buy food, and no hope for change?  What does charity look like in this situation?  Does it look like giving a job, giving hope in some other way, or not?  Does it look like changing my lifestyle to be able to give more?  Does it look like training them for a skill that they can use to earn money? Does it look like just praying for them?  WHAT?

The starkness of their situation has weighed on me.  They are only one family out of FIVE families we have helped just this week, and I can only imagine that will grow the longer we are here.  Please pray with us for wisdom, for multiplication of our resources so that we can share and share and share, and please ask that God would keep our hearts soft to what affects His.  Charity and its Fruits.  What does it mean to YOU?

feeding your family of  11 for under $100 each month?  living with 11 people in the space of one of your living rooms in the USA?  never having any privacy, at all, from the other 10 people living with you?  never knowing when you’ll lose your electricity?  living literally day to day with what you eat, and what bills you pay, so that there might not even be enough to take the bus to your job, and you might have to get up early and walk for an hour to two hours?  never eating out?  eating the SAME meal every meal, every day, for your entire life?  having children who have never played on grass?  or been in a shopping cart?

These things have been the stark realities of our week.  There is probably no way for me to tell you clearly the humbleness I have felt as a Mother answers my question about what special treat I could do for her, or buy for her, (since she clearly has so little). Her answer was “a bag of Nshima, which is 25 Kg. of cornmeal, that is eaten by her family for most meals for a month.  Her family eats 2 1/2 bags of Nshima per month.  The price of a bag of Nshima is 54,000-60,000 KW depending on where you buy it.  This equals $11.25-12.50 per bag, or, $37.50, for three bags of the most expensive Nshima you could buy.  The ‘relish’ that is put on top varies, from tomatoes and onions, to kapenta (little dried fish, reconstituted), to beans, or maybe, for a very special occasion, chicken or meat.  She said that by providing for her family, which includes her Mother, her sister’s children, her brother’s children, her children, and one of her sister’s children’s three children, we would be ‘treating’ her.  That really humbled me.  No request for a pedicure, a special lotion, or a coffee date out at a restaurant.  No request for anything just for her.  And, to boot, no understanding of how her simple request for sustenance for her family so convicted my heart for all the things I think I ‘need’, that I truly don’t need.  It is sad how ‘wants’ can be twisted to become ‘needs’.  How many of you have meat at every meal?  How many of you eat something different at every meal?  I sure know I do!

So, our newest thought have encompassed, how to we minister and live surrounded by Zambian people who have so little, and are grateful for that little, when we are used to so much?  How do we adapt our lifestyle and eating habits to be able to meet more needs of more people, while still remaining thankful, and happy?  How do we come up against such stark need, and not respond to every one, or pick and choose between them?  What is the correct way to respond, so we aren’t creating Zambian consumers, like we, Americans have become?  This week alone we have provided food (nshima bags of uncooked cornmeal, cooking oil, sugar, vegetables, milk, butter, and vegetables) to three separate families.  I don’t say this to toot our own horn, because that is such a small drop in the bucket of need, but to highlight what the tremendous excess our american culture has just gotten used to.  It is easy when everyone around us is doing the same thing we are, to just go along and do it.  But, does that make it right?  We tell our kids no, but do we do the same thing for us, and for our hearts?  Do we really need $1,000 worth of groceries with a varied diet, or can we make do, quite happily with half that?  Can we give more and more of our income away, truly believing that God can and will supply ALL our needs according to his riches in glory?  Can we provide for orphans and widows generously, knowing that the God who commands us to do this will also provide for us?

As a personal example, I gave away more than half of my clothes.  Not very willingly. OK, so I did it with some kicking and a bit of an attitude.  I then put half of that on a container for Africa which hasn’t yet sailed.  I then have only worn less than half of the remaining amount, due to wearing chtenges (colorful skirts, made of a wide piece of African fabric), so I, Holly, could clearly live with less than 1/4 of my clothes, quite happily.  So, my challenge to you is, if you live in a huge American house, and have a huge closetful of stylish clothes, and treat yourself to treats you ‘deserve’, what do you do with that in light of folks who barely have enough money from working hard every day to buy their family food?  And, remember, I don’t mean a variety of Whole Foods, organic food, but I mean the same meal every meal for every day.  What do you do with that?  As a believer in Jesus Christ, called to sacrifice all for His sake, what does that mean for YOU?  It certainly will be different for each of us.  It assuredly means tithing at least 10-20% to our local church and their missions, but what else does it mean for you?  Pray, pray, pray.  God will show you what your call is, and I can’t imagine it is to continue your weekly pedicure, or Bonefish Grill outing (both of which I am guilty of the pleasure of, so I am not preaching to you, but to my own heart here), but to sacrifice for the benefit of others who are LITERALLY going without food.  By the hundreds, and thousands.  We now have faces to go with this statistic.  Please pray with us that we would be wise with our eating habits (should we eat nshima at every meal? ), our giving habits (should we give something to every person we know has need (which this week was four specific families in significant need), and our hiring habits (people who don’t hire people are seen as selfish Americans, so we must hire, but what is the best use of this).

Our hearts need to be soft, to be transformed, and we would ask that you would pray with us for complete transformation, that we would be more like Jesus.  More able to give.  More willing to give.  That we would not buy what we don’t NEED.  Thank you.  Please pray for the Zimbas, the Lungus, the Phiris, and the Dakas, in their need that God would be their supply.

Today I spent five hours getting the supports for the little guy mentioned earlier.  It was a lot of waiting, and a lot of crying, and talking with other mothers about their kids.  The Italian Orthopaedic Hospital seems like a wonderful place to be cared for, but don’t picture the American sterile hospital setting.  I will try to paint a picture of what it is like.  Beautiful exterior building, with lovely gardens and grounds.  Outside one hallway of rooms, there are citenges (colorful cloths) on the ground with people lying on them. It was unclear what their needs were, but was clear their mobility was an issue.  The guard welcomes my vehicle by pointing out a lovely shaded spot where I may park.  We walk outside around the building, and up to a door to the “Workshop”, where there is a line of about 20 people waiting.

American that I am, and Holbrook to boot, I ask if everyone there is waiting for the same thing we are….Isaac Zyambo, and his skills with casting, and supports, hoping against hope that they are waiting for something or someone else.  Yes, indeed they all are waiting for him, so we sit to wait.  I get out my Nyanja flashcards, much to the curiosity of all the women around me.  They are very willing to correct my pronunciation, but not great with explaining the grammar! After about an hour of waiting, we get moved into the one room that is used for casting, and all kinds of fittings of various braces and supports.  At the same time, two other mothers and their children are moved in.  One girl,  is surprisingly like the fellow I am with, and one boy has one leg amputated below the right knee.  As we waited for another hour in the little room, a saw starts up in the entryway that we had just walked through, and an attendant was removing a chest cast off a very small, and very upset child.  Either the saw was dull, or the cast had hardened, but it was arduous, and the screaming emanating from this child was heart-rending.  I asked if I could help, since it looked like it was all the mother could do to hold the child still near the saw, as the saw cut down the chestbone, and across the shoulders.  She didn’t understand much english, but the universal mother-tongue of care and concern for a child in distress seemed to take over, and I took her daughter’s head in my hands and sang to her as she feared for the saw near her chin.  It felt like it took forever, but finally, the cast came off, and the child, mother, attendant, and myself, were all absolutely covered with a combination of sweat and plaster dust.  Everyone in the near vicinity was so relieved to see the child snuggled up to her mom, completely free of the cast.  And, no more heart-rending wailing!

Almost another hour went by, and then Isaac came, fully apologetic for being so busy (and who could possibly doubt this with such clear evidence?), and brought casting supplies for the little girl and boy in our room, and then brought our little guy’s braces.  He checked that they were alright, and then went off to have his assistant put velcro and straps on them (so they DO have velcro somewhere in Zambia!).  After another incredibly long period of time, he came back, showed mom how to put them on, and then left again.  So many people need him, and there is only one expert!  He came back and adjusted one of the knees, I paid him, and he disappeared again for a LONG time to get a receipt.  Thank you to the reader who responded with immediate care for this little fellow, for covering the cost of the braces and shoes. What would we do without caring people like you?

After Mr. Zyambo came back with the receipt, he gave instructions on how to use the braces, and what to do to strengthen this fellow’s legs, and torso.  We walked back through the courtyard to our vehicle, and went to look for shoes, since this family doesn’t own a car, or have any money to purchase shoes for their son.  We went to two stores before I realized we were all too tired and hungry (even though I had stopped for bananas for a snack!) to continue today.  So, we will go shoe-shopping on Wednesday, and try to find good shoes for our little man, so that he can get upright as much as possible.  Thank you all for praying, and caring.  This day may enable this one little fellow to begin to attend school, which would be a wonderful thing.