{let’s go on a walk ~ journey with me to Gidioni’s home + family in Tanzania.}

if you’ve clicked over here from facebook or instagram or twitter you may have noticed i’m in africa right now {soooo crazy cool!}. with my husband. and a group of bloggers, including my real life friend nester, and a giant bottle of anti-malaria pills.

we’re here with compassion international — MY FIRST TRIP traveling with them! — and i’m having the strangest feelings. every morning i wake up i’m like, we’re in africa! last night i went to bed in africa and this morning i woke up in africa! the sunsets are beyond gorgeous and the sun is beyond-er hot. and the details of the neighborhoods we visit are so unbalanced. so unbalanced.

every morning our group meets near the lobby ~ we step onto the bus that takes us to a new child development center + neighborhood to visit. did you know each center is run by the local church? i think that’s pretty amazing — compassion international serves as a partner to each house of worship, assisting them with meeting the children’s basic needs.

it takes about three seconds for things to switch from serene to something totally opposite for serene, i’m not even sure what to call it. earlier today we went on another home tour {where we visit the home of a child sponsored through compassion}, but this time we were welcomed inside the home.

oh, my eyes saw so many firsts.

monica was the mother of gidioni, the sweet boy who’s home we visited. when we arrived, monica was bathing outside with rainwater gathered from a puddle near the edge of their home. i think we surprised her with our visit by arriving early, although i’m not sure how she would have known what time we were coming because i didn’t see a watch on her wrist or a clock in her home, or a cell phone in her purse {like i use for my watch}.

she dashed inside to dry off + get dressed, and then our visit began. we learned that gidioni has been sponsored for two years now by a family that lives in germany. gidioni’s father was out finding work. this was the first home visit we made where there was father active in the home; the other two homes the father had left long ago. do you want to sponsor a child? click here ♥

our walk to gidioni’s home was like the other home visits we made. it’s hard to describe, and while i captured some video of our home visit, i’d like to try to find the best words to use. here i go…

we head out on foot and the road is pot-holed and bumpy and decorated with rain run-off cutouts. pieces of tarp show through the worn sections of the dirt road; food scraps and trash and perhaps a shoe left behind. chickens are seen a few meters back. laundry is hanging from nearly every home and babies are off playing while their mama’s work in their garden or wash dishes in a basin near the open front door.

it smells like dirt.

fresh dirt, raw dirt, dirty dirt.

you can tell by the smell of smoke in the air that a fire is burning nearby.

women walk past us wearing beautiful wraps and flip flops — some are even barefoot — most walk with a tall basket on their head, water-filled or banana-carrying.

we walk through grass and skip around another stream running down the road. muddy sections of ground appear and then we’re back to more grass, tall grass.

most homes we see don’t have windows or solid doors. instead, sheets of fabric dart in the wind and little ones appear in the door frame with their hands near their mouth, watching us as we walk by.

we wave at them…

they smile and wave back.

my heart feels inspired to share more + more.

if i stop describing what i see right now, does that leave you at a turning point?

do my words so beautiful and lovely, or do they sound poverty-filled and hope-less?

or how about both?

i know there is a lot of poverty here but i also know there is a lot of beauty here.

and hope.

there is always hope if you have a heart. and ya know what ~ these people have hearts, which means they have hope. i think this hope can burn silently but i believe it’s there, in every persons heart.

while visiting gidioni i took some video {see below}. you can see us walking to his home, meeting his family, chatting inside their home, looking at the letters and stickers and coloring pages his sponsor family has mailed him.

take a peek — let’s go on a walk ~ journey with me to Gidioni’s home + family in Tanzania ~

do you see the hope that i see? click here to sponsor a child from the development center we visited today.