Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Small Things with Great Love


Our Tuesday schedule finally provided a bit of familiarity. Jes and Jill were up early for a beautiful sunrise and off to school to assist the 4th-6th graders. Starting Wednesday they will take over for the teachers of those grades who have to be out of town. They’ve asked me to teach Religion class for them, then they’ll teach everything else…except maybe Afrikaans!

Parker, Brook, Morgan and Meghan will continue assisting the 4 preschool classes all this week. It seems they had forgotten how much fun preschool was: singing fun songs, games, snack time, recess, circling P’s in the newspaper, talking about bread, and everyone’s favorite time of day…HUG TIME! Their game for this morning was to blindfold different kids and have them search for a ball while the rest of their team shouted directions to them. When it was the teachers turn to be blindfolded our team members pulled one over on them and had Parker hold the ball in his hand the whole time.

Fred, Lauren, and Katie have made great progress on the fence repair and painting at the ministry homes. The part they have completed is now the brightest fence on the whole street! Linda has been teaching the devotional story at the preschool in the morning, then helping organize the ministry store. The mommies of the ministry families came yesterday to “shop” for items they need for their children. Meghan already noticed an old pair of her shoes on the feet of one of the children!

After lunch we spend our time in the ministry homes or at the school helping students with their homework or review of what they learned in school that day. After homework it’s time for fun! We head out to the yard or the street to play games of soccer, throw a football, or some other game they teach us. The Namibian adults stop in their tracks and watch the novelty of us playing with kids. Here adults don’t play with kids. It may sound like just fun and games for us, but it’s truly a ministry. It helps overcome old apartheid barriers and gives the kids positive role models. They learn character and social skills from how they play together, so we hope to be good examples of playing well.

Once the sun starts to go down and the cold begins to set in we know it’s time to head home for supper and team time. We gather together each evening to worship together, read blog comments, and reflect on the events of the day and what God has been teaching us. Then we close the day by praying for each other. Bedtime comes earlier these days because of our early mornings, but that’s good because it ensures we’ll have the energy for whatever tomorrow may bring.

And lastly I'll give a quick plug for the photo album. We've been uploading lots of pics for you to see what we've been up to so click on the Photo Album link in the right column to check them out!

3 comments:

  1. Love the updates and love the pictures! The look on the kids faces is amazing! Thank you all for what you are doing! God is definitely using you all in an incredible way! Continuing to pray for you all! (Hey Parker any chance you could get up early and catch the sunrise...that would be an awesome picture:) Love you all!

    Amy Ragsdale

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  2. Hi Katie:
    Hope you are doing well. I am not good at blogging. I know I went to this website two days ago, but I did not push "google account", so who knows what has happened to it!
    Any how, it sounds like you are very busy helping out the church with painting and school work. Let me know when you will be visiting the sand dunes. I would like for someone to take a picture of these dunes because I heard they are very beautiful.
    Keep blogging and sending me pictures. It all looks so wonderful to be helping the people there.
    Take care,
    Love Mom.

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  3. still praying for you all!

    I'll have to make a Raleigh road trip when you return. Miss you Fred & Linda!

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