Did you ever have a dream that you didn’t even know you had until it came true? When I was in high school, I had a gym teacher who began every class period with the phrase `Line up maggots!’

RVA is a kind of place where you might be asked to do different things at different times. As our time here draws to an end, I have come to a place where I have been asked to use my special skills in an unique way.

I am now a gym teacher. And I am teaching badminton.

I have friends from that era of life who are wiping their screens because they just spit tea at their monitor as they recall my athletic ability. Add to that the fact that I have not played badminton in 25 years, and you have a recipe for excellence unmatched by anything I have attempted in Africa.

But after the first day, what was startling to me was how easily and how naturally `Line up maggots’ came to me. And then I realized: I had always wanted to yell `Line up maggots’ to a group of impressionable young people, and now I had the opportunity.

Dreams can come true.

They really did later in the week. We got to deliver a large group of toys to the orphanage near us. They all went into the large common area, and we demonstrated how a Magna Doodle worked. And then we passed them out to them.

I wished you could have been there. For the vast majority, this was the first toy they had ever received. One little girl told me `I have never had a new toy before.’ They came in boxes, and one little guy just hugged his and I finally asked if I could help him open his. He told me `I just want to hold it for awhile.’

I always try to say when I give a gift that `this is from people in the United States who love you.’ When I said that on Thursday, several kids told Matthew and JT `We are saying that we are very happy!’ You wouldn’t believe the beds these kids sleep on, or the amount of food they get to eat. But as they drew and wrote on their Magna Doodles, there was a real sense of joy in that room.

On Saturday, we got to go to the home for disabled children a few hours away. With every strike against them, somehow this is the happiest place I have been since we have been in Africa. Part of it is the director, Daniel, who is about the greatest person I’ve met on the planet, part of it is grace, but whatever it is, it is wonderful to be around those children.

We were able to give each child a Magna Doodle, a coloring book and crayons, and a matchbox car. One of the little guys was unable to thank me because he exhaled so deeply when I handed him his toys he couldn’t talk. It was such a wonderful experience, and they were so appreciative of what you did for them.

But the best part was someone sent a stomp rocket, which is what it sounds like: a rocket that is launched by the air it received when you stomp your feet on the launch pad. Watching kids without legs flinging themselves on the pad to launch the rockets was something I will not soon forget. We made jelly and butter sandwiches, and you would have thought we had served lobster. I don’t know if I have been in a happier group in my whole life

Sunday Matthew chose to get baptized in water, and he asked me if I would baptize him. There were a group of kids that got baptized, and it was very moving. They asked each kid to share why they were choosing to get baptized, and then they had a friend read a scripture they had chosen. Then after they were baptized, a song of their choosing was song. It was done outside, with the whole school present.

It wouldn’t be a Peifer event without something a little different occurring. The girl who got baptized before Matthew choose Psalm 23, as Matthew did, so it provided a few giggles when it was read twice in a row. And Jessie, the increasingly codependent dog, tried to climb in the baptism pool with me when I entered.

But it couldn’t take away from the joy of the day. For once, I didn’t have much to say; I didn’t need to. Baptism is such a gift all I said was `Matthew, some things are like really good ice cream. You don’t have to add anything to them; they are good all by themselves.’

YP