(7) Childlike faith and charity

My children help me be humble with their faith and charity. Our 15 year old son has shared on several occasions, "I feel like we need to do this and sooner than later." and "This is a difficult time to leave but a crucial time in my life for this to happen." It's difficult because at 16 he could get his drivers license and begin dating. He finally feels accepted and included by the youth in our neighborhood since we moved in 5 years ago. This was the year he wanted to go back to school after homeschooling for 6 years. As hard as it is he is willing and wanting to leave that all for a year to go have a life changing experience. To add to my admiration for his example he has plans to serve a 2 year full-time mission for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,  in a couple years. I can see how it would be easy to think I'm going to serve in a couple of years so why "take away" a year from "my life" now.  When his friends say things like they would be so mad, or not go he isn't swayed, in fact he seems even more set on it. I can see in his eyes and feel from him that this is not an easy decision but one he is committed to.
We have 5 daughters. I would say one of them is not as excited but none the less supportive. She is my child that goes above and beyond when I comes to cleaning, organizing, and planning. She has been a huge help when we were preparing for the yard sale and as we continue to declutter the home. She has commented more than once that, "even with everything we get rid of, when we get home we will probably realize we don't need a whole lot more of what we kept."
We have pictures from the orphanage we think we might go to, including pictures of the children. My children love to look at them, and to show people "our kids" and "our orphanage".
Everyone of them talks about going. Together we prepare by doing things like "embracing the heat" sometimes by not turn on the AC in the car on our HOT, Utah summer days. We talk about what we will miss, but even more who we will miss. Yet we are excited and all in this together.
As family we have a time set aside each week to spend together, Monday nights are Family Nights. For an activity on July 30 we went on to Google earth to look up Kumasi, Ghana. I looks nothing like our community or anywhere else we have ever seen in America. Most people would look down on it, I think. It's interesting to me what my children said as they saw it from street views, "I love the cars", "I love the stores" (they look like yard sales on the side of the road.), "Its so beautiful", "I can't wait to be there." These comments continued for days afterward. I felt the same. My heart was full and I was excited that this would be home for a time.
With Heavenly Father's help we are somehow able to love a people and a place we haven't been to yet. A place that others might not think desirable yet it is beautiful to us.