Holey Saturday

Saturday I deep fried homemade donuts with 12 teenage girls in Lideta.

The AIDS project hosts a weekly meeting for daughters of beneficiaries or other girls from the neighborhood in a youth group fashion. These girls are generally missing at least one if not two parents (either a parent is dead, or a dad has left). They haven't had much of a normal childhood -- they haven't had all that creative play time that the Western world bestows on children.

So, you have these 15-year-old girls who basically come from the ghetto, getting together once a week to play, learn and talk. A couple weeks ago we took them bowling. They didn't even know what bowling was until we showed them how to do it. Last week we talked about what a pattern is so they could make jewelry--most of them didn't know what a pattern was. You might think this stuff would be a little childish for teenage girls, but since they've never really had much of a chance to play and be creative, they really enjoy it.

It was rainy all day, and so we made donuts. I had made the dough the day before (to save time and clean up) so the girls rolled out the dough and cut out the donuts (Bev has a real donut cutter!).

While the donuts were rising and the oil heating, Bev led the group in a devotion. We talked about how every person has a hole in their heart that feels empty. The hole is often the cause of sadness in loneliness. Adam & Eve didn't have this hole until the whole thing with Satan happened in the garden. But since the fall, all humans are created with a hole in the heart that separates them from other people and God.

We talked about what kind of things people try to use to fill the holes in their hearts. The girls came up with some good answers. Selam said that some people use good education, good manners and good position in society to fill their hole. Lemlem said that some people try to do lots of good things, things that the church wants people to do, so that these works will make them happy.

Then we talked about how Jesus is really the only thing that can completely fill the hole. All other things that we try to fill the hole with are never enough. If we try to fill the hole with anything but Jesus, we will be inevitably disappointed.

After the girls had talked and listened for half an hour, we raucously deep fried many donuts and donut holes. The girls had a ball with the powdered sugar, and we all ruined our supper with donuts!

Elizabeth