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 4^th-6^th 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!