Saturday morning dance party to end a full week

This week was just a fun week all around. Our Khutsala Artisans continue to create new items adding fabulous tassel earrings to our list of new products available this week , the 140+ children attending our own Project Canaan Academy are working hard at school and our babies just bring me joy every time I go and see them. This short video is Poppy making her way to bed for "lala" or nap time. She is very proud of herself that she can now crawl.

For those of you who have never been to Project Canaan, it was simply BUSH when we bought the 2,500 acre piece of land in 2009.  There were no roads, no electricity, no water (or river), no fields and no buildings.  Since then we have built 30 miles of road, 60+ buildings, three dams, four 500,000L water tanks with 10+ miles of piping, homes for children/staff/volunteers, schools, vocational training centers, a medical clinic, a dairy, greenhouse and egg laying barns.  We have been working on an aerial video to TRY to capture all that has been done as we are celebrating our 10^th anniversary this year, and today I would like to share it with you!  Please go to https://youtu.be/9fX-iPh_gdE and get a tour of the property and get an idea of the scope of this exciting project. I promise you will love what you see.

This week we also started digging the foundation for Emseni #5, which is the dorm for girls that we need to build urgently in order to move our big girls up and make space for our ever growing family. Project Canaan is currently home for 225 orphaned or abandoned children, and we are committed to them until they are 21-years-old.  Our youngest is 4-weeks-old and our oldest children are 8-years-old.   If you would like to participate in this project, you can buy a block (or 10 or 100?) to help us get this building funded and built quickly. We are bursting at the seams! A block can also be a great birthday gift for the person who has everything.  Please check out our link here and buy a block today.

This morning, before writing this blog, we had a Saturday morning dance party and it was SO MUCH FUN!  All 136 children who live at the Emseni Campus came down to dance with the 40 children who live at the toddler home and together these 176 children danced to one of their favorite songs together.  The file is too large for me to load here, but you can see a live video feed of it on the Heart for Africa Facebook page or video on my personal Facebook page if we are friends. In the short video below you can see babies in the background watching the kids rehearse their dance.

This was a great week filled with the usual challenges, the usual disappointments and heartbreak, but also the never-ending joy that comes with total surrender and being exactly where we are supposed to be.

Live from eSwatini … happy Saturday!

Janine