Thanks for experiencing your first photo session with me.  I hope you all enjoyed your trip & all the fun and exciting new things Kathi showed you!  Enjoy your photos!

Well, here is our looooooong March 10th….

We began with breakfast in the Upper Room, lovingly prepared by Anne from the Touching Africa Team.  I wasn’t a fan of oatmeal, so I quickly learned  the word for bread (daboe…I believe), and asked one of our dear helpers, Nati, to get me some bread at basically every meal.  I had a peanut butter sandwich for every meal that had milk or that I thought my stomach couldn’t handle.

After breakfast, and a potty break at the Bamboo, we headed off to our first clinic in the sanctuary of a local church.  Here we are having some prayer time before we opened the doors to the public.

This was the outside of the church where we held the clinic.  It has the tin roof, windows on both sides, a few fluorescent lights inside, and many benches for seating.  But that’s about it.  No carpet, no majestic sound system, no artwork, no glass in the windows, no heat or A/C.  People who came to this church came because they WANTED to, not because of what the church building itself had to offer.  It was beautiful to behold.

This is Elise.  The is the 13-year-old daughter of one of the team members who came along this year.  Here she is donning her “doctor” gear.  These were the typical things most of us wore throughout the day:  scrubs, gloves, and the occasional mask.

This table was one of three for reading glasses.  Here, Jessica is helping a woman choose frames in the reading strength she needed.

This is a view directly outside the front doors of the church.  These people are waiting to get into the clinic to be seen.  They sat here after they had gotten through the large gate at the front of the church.  We heard stories of people at the gate who had slept overnight and others who had walked as many as four days to be seen by the doctors.

Some more reading glasses magic by Michael Elliot….

And these people are ones who’ve gotten into the church and are now waiting to be seen by the triage team.  As I mentioned earlier, before people saw the doctors, we took a medical history on them along with vitals.

This is Alice.  She and Marie, were team members dedicated solely to prayer.  They would seat people after they’d seen the doctor and simply pray for them.  It was a sweet sight to behold.

And now, after morning and afternoon clinic, we move on to the BIG church.  This is the church where Pastor Califa preaches.  It just oozes over with people.  I tried my best in the next photo to show you how many people come to this place.  The lighting is very challenging, but in this photo, after you can’t see any more heads in the far back and it’s just light…well, that’s more people sitting outside the church in even more rows of benches.  It was just amazing to behold.

This little girl is one of many who were following me around during each and every church service.  Apparently it’s not a common thing to have an American girl with a large camera walking around during church.  I tried my best not to cause a stir, but some of these little darlings were too cute to resist snapping a photo of!

I had to shoot at 6400 ISO here, but it was the only way (I knew of) to capture all that I wanted to see.  This is Betty, the Ethiopian singer I mentioned earlier, leading worship.  I have some great video of this too that my husband is working on for me.  Can’t wait to share it!

And lastly, I’ll leave you with Elise.  This is during another late night pill sorting session.   She just couldn’t last the whole time & fell asleep on the hockey bags!

These are three of the lovely ladies that I had the opportunity to walk the Annapolis Mall with on Saturday night.  All of them are women & mothers of high schoolers in our church’s youth group.  On Saturday we had a scavenger hunt at the Annapolis Mall for our youth.   And while they were scouring the mall looking for little clues, these ladies & I had a chance to just walk for an hour, chat, window shop, & enjoy one another’s company.  It was a really sweet time.  Thanks Kim, Tricia & Kara for letting me tag along!

]]> http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/2010/02/2010-image-51-lovely-ladies/feed/ 0 http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/2009/09/faith-worship-band/ http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/2009/09/faith-worship-band/#comments Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:48:42 +0000 mandysroka http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/?p=7075 Stay with me on this one….

My husband’s cousin’s husband (or my “cousin” as I find easier to say) sent me an e-mail a bit ago asking me if I’d be willing to photograph his church’s worship band.  See, they are having a big worship event at their church in a few months that they want to invite local youth groups to & wanted to get some promotional materials out to advertise it.  Of course!  Yeah!  Like did you even have to ask???  I said yes and headed up to Faith Baptist Church on Thursday to photograph this diverse group of talented musicians.

It was probably my quickest photo session ever, but I am pleased with what we got.  Think album cover….

They got some good air!

Running…those lead singers always have to be first

This may have been a bit awkward for all involved

One with my “Lindsey” PS Action effect

My fave

The GQ model squat

Let me know if you’d be interested in attending Faith’s youth worship service.  Or you can contact my “cousin” Tim Byer directly.  I’m sure it’s gonna rock!

]]> http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/2009/09/faith-worship-band/feed/ 0 http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/2009/03/give-it-up-for-lent/ http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/2009/03/give-it-up-for-lent/#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:55:54 +0000 mandysroka http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/?p=3311

(My friends are gonna hate me for posting these photos, but who cares!)

So, what’s with the title of this post?  I didn’t even fully know what Lent was until this past Sunday at church!  I know, I’m 28 years old and still didn’t know!  Anyways, the above statement, “Give it up for Lent,” is something I remember my good friend Gina saying quite often during the lenten season.  Gina was one of the many wonderful friends I was so blessed to be able to hang out with during high school.  We were thick as thieves, always at one another’s houses.  I distinctly remember, and I hope correctly, that when one of us would wish for something, or complain we didn’t have something, Gina would so kindly say, “Ah, give it up for lent!”  All I knew was that Lent was when my other friends would not have chocolate or coffee or something they usually ate for 40 days.

However, this past Sunday, my pastor, Keith Peck, explained Lent in such a way that made its meaning and purpose very clear to me.  He explained Lent as giving up something we rely on, something that makes our heart happy, something that we focus on more than Christ.  And in giving up that thing, we are better able to realize our need for Christ.  Here’s the kicker:  His challenge was to give up gossip for lent!  When you think about it, it sounds pretty easy.  However, when you put it the way Keith did, it’s gonna be tough!  He said, “I challenge you to fast from speaking about another person who is not in your presence with a negative intent, no matter if it is true or not. To only speak of people who are not in your presence in a positive light.”  Ouch!  That hurts because I know I am very guilty of talking about others in my nice sounding way, but with my ill meaning intentions hidden beneath the surface.  I am going to try to take on this challenge.  It’ll be my first observation of Lent.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  (Pray.)

I have to end with one more funny old photo of me and my friends.  Here we all are at the prom.

Consequently, Bryan, the dude in the middle, married Hannah, the girl to your left.  And in case you couldn’t tell, I’m the girl on your far left, in the dark blue dress.

Pam at work

Today I was given the opportunity to dip my toes back into the profession of teaching.  Although, this time, my student wasn’t a kindergartener, it was Pam.  Pam’s family and mine attended the same church for many years and I have gotten to reconnect with her daughter through the wonderful Facebook.  Right before Christmas, Leia (Pam’s daughter), contacted me about giving her mom some lessons on photography.  Now mind you, I don’t pretend to know all there is to know about photography, or to even know a little bit.  I pretty much get lucky in my opinion.  Nevertheless, I said yes and thought it would be fun to reconnect with Pam, and have some photo fun in these cold winter months.

We decided to take out a couple of newly engaged, soon-to-be-married, people that I happen to know!  Well, at least I know the male half of the couple.  CP’s dad was the pastor of the church I first attended when I arrived in Maryland in 1987, so I’ve known him for quite a while.  And he has grown up to be such a handsome, kind, wonderful man.  Know how I can tell?  It’s the way Sara gazes at him, cuddles up in his arms, and laughs at pretty  much everything he says and does.  I wish you both the best, and thank you for letting Pam & myself use you as our guinea pigs.