Kierstin and Katie's Experience in Tanzania

Kierstin and Katie went 1st to Tanzania in Africa with a team from the First Pres. Church of Bakersfield. The goal of the team was two fold...1) To love on these refugees with God's love and, 2) To watch how the kids in the camp play...see what they do to recreat, if at all (the girls are doing a Senior Project for graduating in Recreation at Cal Poly). The refugee camp is in northern Tanzania and has been the home for these Tuti people from Burundi for the last 20 years!!!! There are 40,000 refugees in the camp. When it first opened there were more than a 100,000 in the camp.
Kierstin is speaking to a huge group of refugee kids, telling a story about Jesus loving those that others think are outcast's. It is a great story called "You Are Special" by Max Lucado. I'm sure each one of the kids that heard that story could relate to what Kierstin read and talked about. These children don't have much hope for the future as most of them have lived in the refugee camp all their lives and will probably never leave this place. Breaks our hearts and can you imagine how Our Lord feels about it?




This is a great shot of Kiki (foreground) and Katie (in the background) being totally smothered by the kids of the refugee camp. The girls said that the kids have nothing to do all day long so for the team to visit them was like the kids going to Disneyland.

The girls said that hundreds of kids would surround them and just want to come close to them. They don't often see too many beautiful women like these two!!



This is Kiki loving on one of the refugee children. We are sure those children (and adults) will never forget the teams visit to their camp.

After a week the kids fell in love with the team and it was heartbreaking for them to say goodbye.



Love this picture as it really communicates how amazing these girls were to go and serve these people. They too fell in love with the people and their hearts broke to say goodbye.