The Universal Language

So, what's it take to break into the neighborhood and get our kids engaged with other kids? Well, the universal language of soccer, of course. Kids from the neighborhood have been peeking under our gate for the past couple of weeks, trying to see what our kids have been up to. But, its been intimidating for our kids to just walk outside the gate and make friends with kids that speak a different language. When I walked home on Saturday evening there were 2 kids peeking under our gate, so I walked up to them and scared the daylights out of them...they wanted to run away. So, I pulled out one of my new, fresh off the shelf Amharic words and said, "Quas?" which means Ball and is a really lame way to ask if they'd like to play, but fortunately they said yes.

So, we had our first (of hopefully many) football tournaments on our rocky, stony road outside our house with about 10 neighborhood kids playing with our kids - yes even Hanna wanted in on the action!

What maybe was even more fun was seeing the looks on the faces of all the people walking up our road that night - doing double takes of this ferenj family outside of the compound playing football! It was great. Praise God for our kids and their courage in breaking the ice in our neighborhood. They came away pumped and saying how much fun they had. And, now every evening Joshua asks if he can go out and play with them. Now, that's awesome!

Please join us in praying for our neighborhood kids.