Dear Oprah,

     I want to start tonight's letter where I left off last night...at the arrival of the school. The picture above was my first introduction, in person, to Christ's Gift Academy. I'm putting it in because after seeing it, my mother started sending her own donations to the school because she said it haunted her. She saw it as humble, rickety, and yet proud - a fitting description of Mbita and most parts of Africa, I would suggest. To me, that first day when I took the picture, it was a sign of triumph! We had made the long journey and had finally arrived to do what we had come to do...which is so funny, really...us Americans coming to teach the Africans how to teach...when the as of yet undiscovered reality was that we were coming to learn - learn of true humility, true grace, true perserverance, and true faith. Valary was about to make her introduction into my consciousness which would begin to teach me these things.