Today was Vitale's first birthday! Having Vitale and all of his family in our life has been such a joy! I have been wanting to go to Africa ever since I can remember, and I am soo excited that we'll be heading there in a few weeks!! But, Ryan brought to my attention today how cool it is that God has brought Africa to us by means of having wonderful friendships with people from there all around us. It's true, if it weren't for God sending Liz to my doorstep (literally) 5 years ago, we wouldn't be going to Uganda this month. And if it weren't for God urging us to the ESL camp this summer (that we were so on the edge of not attending), we wouldn't have met our friends from Congo! It's been a gift to be apart of their vibrant community, and we got to see an even bigger picture of that today at Vitale's birthday party! The church community that Bienvenue, Elodie, and Vitale are a part of was having a house warming party today for a place they were just able to purchase to hold community gatherings, ESL classes, etc in...and it just so happened to coincide with Vitale's birthday, so they threw a party in celebration...this was the first traditional American birthday party that any of them have ever been to! Bagimba, the pastor the church, is from Burundi and just came to the States 18 months ago as a refugee...he has accomplished sooo much in such a short period of time, it humbles me. He has started this entire church which now has over 100 people, mostly consisting of refugees in Tucson...it just goes to show what a need there was in Tucson for such a gathering place.
Here is a video of some of the music that was sung at the party...
Prayers for Vitale...
Birthday cake...
Piñata...
Onlookers...
Candy Gatherers...
Presents and Vitale's acceptance speech (he was a man of few words)...
Sound asleep...
While at the party, I saw some great ways to carry babies...can't wait to have some vibrant colored fabric and a baby on my back!
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