Week 7

 

Field Trip #1:

  

 

One of the older classes has been studying cows and farming and this past Friday we arranged to take them to a field.  Since they already know so much about farming with oxen, we thought it would be a great idea to expand their knowledge of farming with the possibility of using a tractor.  None of them know anything about that, and if they choose to become farmers when they grow up, it will be a huge benefit to them and their families if they are able to save money and buy a tractor to assist in the plowing, planting, and harvesting process.  The field trip started off with a short tractor ride and then a walk to the field.  When we got there, an experienced local talked to the children about traditional farming techniques and how it would be different and more effective with a tractor.  The children hung on his every word and really learned a lot.  After the field trip, the children got back and drew pictures of tractors and something the tractor could help them with.  One girl told me she learned that “she should save her money to buy a tractor”.

 

                              

 

 

Field Trip #2:

 

 

The other class has been studying butterflies and other insects.  On Friday, since our other class was taking a field trip, we thought it would be great if they could take one too.  So we took all the children deep into the bush on an official “Bug Hunt”.  We made six groups of three children and each group has a container they needed to fill with bugs.  We asked them to try and fined three different kinds of bugs to place into the container and I think they all found at least 5, if not more.  When we got back from our bug hunt, we talked about the number of legs each insect had, how many body parts, and antae.  Then we talked about the different colors, how some could jump and some couple fly.  The children were fascinated with what they found and they each picked one insect to draw on colored paper, then cut them out, and pasted on a bigger piece of paper making a “Bug Collage”. 

 

                 

Week 6

 

Learn Tonga - Letter “B” Words

                 Buku:  Book                                                             Bolla:  Ball

                Busyu:  Face                                                            Bekke:  Bag

                Banana:  Banana                                                     Baama:  Mother

                Bantu:  People                                                         Basicikolo:  Students

 

Science Center:

This week the children in all classes were busy learning.  Some of the classes are pursuing cows and farming.  They have talked about what a cow looks like, the different things cows do, what they eat, where they live, etc.  This week some children got the opportunity to draw and then paint a cow.  They told us what their cows were doing in the picture and it never ceases to amaze me how their imaginations run wild.  The older class plans on bringing clay to school next week and making a big cow out of clay using the description they gave me during one of our meetings. 

 

Another class is diving into insects and butterflies.  We ha a few flying around the play area on Friday and the children caught three of them.  They talked about the similarities and differences in the butterflies they caught, they researched them in books, and they have decided they want to go on a Bug Hunt next week to see what else they can find in the bush.

 

Community Art Project:

 

This week all four classes got to participate in a community art project.  Last week, each class went on a nature walk to gather items to add to a ‘nature loom’.  Medis and I collected 4 sticks to make the frame of the loom and all the children were given the opportunity to weave bark, leaves, grass, branches, flowers, and anything else they found on the walk.  Some of the children only wanted to put one or two things on it, while others loaded the loom up with nature.  It was enjoyable to see the loom hanging over the art stuio table knowing ALL the children worked together to build it.  Now we just have to pray the owl doesn’t come back and make his nest there :)                                  

 

Jeremiah’s Message:

This week the children heard the message that “God is Real”.  When I asked the children if God is real they all said YES.  Then I asked how do we know He is real and none of the children had any ideas.  Jeremiah went on to ask them who made all the things around them (i.e. the sky, the clouds, the rain, the sun, the grass, the dirt, the animals, and them) and the children answered “Leza” to everything.  They understood that God has created everything around them, so Jeremiah broke it down and shared with the children that even though we can’t see God with our eyes, we CAN see all that he created, so we know He has to be real. 

 

 

“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him”

Colossians 1:16

A Cry For Charles

 

Fellow prayer warriors, the church in Zambia needs your prayers yet again.  Our foreman, Charles, is in great danger.  He is HIV positive and has been living with it for over 11 years.  God has blessed him this far in keeping him healthy and away from anything that might destroy his immune system, but for whatever reason, Charles has contracted TB in his lungs.  He started coughing back in January and he went to the clinic every two weeks getting tablets for the cough, hoping and praying that it wasn’t something worse.  Well finally, it has gotten so bad, that he hasn’t worked in almost two weeks and he just got a referral from the doctor at the clinic in the bush to go to the hospital in town.  The doctor only comes every two weeks, so Charles has been sitting here, trying to regain his strength, waiting for the referral.  He got it on Thursday and we took him to the hospital the next day (Friday, March 23).  After a chest x-ray, the doctors confirmed the TB and that his lungs are really bad off.  His wife, Brenda, is staying with him in the hospital and his daughter is caring for the children at his home until they return. 

In Livingstone, a large city, they say only 30% of people who go into the TB Ward make it out alive and I would assume that a large portion of the 30% is probably HIV free, so Charles chances are not good, everything is against him at this point, except God.  We have had a few people in the community say that Charles is not going to make it, but I cannot believe that in my heart.  God has appointed Charles to work among the children at the orphanage in this community project.  He helps them in so many ways and is such a blessing to those around him.  He is a great man, with a very humble heart, who loves Jesus dearly and I know wants to glorify His name above all. 

So I plead with you that the moment you read this, your knees hit the ground in humble prayer for your brother.  He may not live near you, you probably have never met him, you may not know what he looks like, but you do know that he is your brother and that we all have the same Father.  Go to God on Charles’ behalf and lay your requests at the feet of your Savior.  Thank you in advance for your faith and the prayers you have already given up to God. 

 

 

“I waited patiently for the Lord;  He inclined to me and heard my cry,

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog,

and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.”

Psalm 40:1-3

Week 5

     I can tell the children are really settling in and becoming very comfortable at the school. We officially have no children crying at drop off and all the children coming with a smile on their face and I think some of them even have too much fun because before we can get to our “good bye” song they are falling asleep. This week seemed packed full of activity with the children in all four classes. Two of the classes have started dialogues about cows, plowing, and farming. Since all of their parents are farmers, the children know a lot about plowing, planting, and harvesting, however, I still think there is a lot we can learn together as a class.
 

All the conversations about plowing came up since the children started making cows with play dough and even being creative enough to put a yoke over their heads. Some of the other children were also playing with the cows in construction center and they too would create a yoke by putting a cylinder shaped block on the back of the necks of two cows. Then they would walk the cows around saying they were “plowing the fields”. Medis and I are hoping to provide avenues in the class for the children to continue their learning about cows and plowing, and maybe even take a field trip to someone’s field in the next couple of weeks to learn even more about farming.


In the writing center the children are getting more comfortable going there themselves and writing the letters we are learning, as well as, ones they have already learned how to make. The younger classes are using it more and more, and in the older classes new friends are finding the center and utilizing the tools there to help them practice writing.
 

 
Last week the children explored cool math by noticing there were “big” pieces of sand and “small” pieces of sand.  They were able to sort piles of sand and make a chart depicting the big and small piece they found. This week, we thought it would be fun for the children to explore measuring length, finding short and long items around the classroom. They used a line on the table to compare the items to in order to discover if it was “shorter” or “longer” than the line. Both the younger and the older classes enjoyed measuring things and using their cool math skills in the process.
 
This week the children were introduced to the letter “T” and some English and Tonga words that begin with that letter. A lot of the children enjoyed making the letter T and some of the other one’s they know (M, A, S) with play dough at the art center later in the week. They brilliantly showed off their wonderful art work to each other and challenged one another to make the letters as well.
                                    
 
In addition to everything else the children did this week, we managed to find time to go outside on a nature walk. The children were looking to collect grass, sticks, bark, seed pods, leaves, and anything else they could find on the ground. Each class collected a large bag full of these items and they are going to work really hard on a community art project in the coming week.

Jeremiah had a wonderful message from God this week…he told all the children that they were “Born For A Purpose” and that God has a special plan for each of them. He then told them the story of Esther and how her purpose was to save the lives of her people by trusting God and going before the king to ask for his help. Before God made Esther Queen, she was just an ordinary girl, but she took the opportunity God laid before her, trusted in His plan, and saved her people from an evil man. God used Esther to glorify His name and fulfill His plans and promises to His people.



       “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you…”
                                                
                                            John 15:16

Week 4

 

This has been the golden week for both the teachers and the children. This is my first week that I haven’t had any children cry when they were dropped off and participated through the whole day with very few tears, usually over not getting their way in the centers. The children are beginning to find all the areas in the classroom and using their imagination while they are playing with the things they find. In the beginning, we had to introduce some of the things around the room, since these children have never seen anything like this, unless we showed them how to play, they would have just sat on the rug all day long. Now, I can’t keep them on the rug long enough to finish the meetings before they want to jump up and get busy in the classroom.

In morning meeting, we learned about the letter “A”. In Tonga, there are very few letters that start  with the letter A, so the theater included mostly English words (i.e. apple, ax, alphabet, alligator, arrow, airplane, and a few others.) The older children pick up the words quickly and often remember one or two the following class, while the younger ones just sit patiently and listen to the story. The more they see the letters; the quicker they will begin to recognize them preparing the children for reading.

Jeremiah (our prophet for giving God’s message each week) told the children that “God loves them.” He shared the story about Zacchaeus the tax collector, whom no one else loved since he stole money from them, yet in spite of what he did, God still loved him. The children loved acting out the story and hearing Jeremiah tell them all about God’s love for them. Usually, Jeremiah also gives them a task for the weekend: this weekend the children were to go out and tell others that God loves them. So while he is instilling God’s messages on their hearts, he is also making them into disciples.

In the classroom the children were involved in many things…in the previous week; the older class noticed they could separate the sand into “small” pieces and “big” pieces using the sieve that was in the table. This week, we talked about other ways you can separate the sand! Some of their ideas included: picking it out with your finger, putting it in a dish and twirling it around, sieving it, pouring from one container to another one, and using a spoon. All of these techniques allowed the children to sort the sand into “big” pieces and “small” pieces.

A lot of the children spent more time in math building with the math cubes, working on patterns, and working together to count the cubes. In science, the children had insect  cards they could look at and explore. Many chose to use the magnifying glass that was there to discover that when they put it near the cards, it made the bug look “bigger”. And they are enjoying learning about different animal sounds from a puzzle.

 

The children are beginning to settle into their routine, knowing when we have our meetings, choice time, bible time, stories, etc. They are finding each other and learning to play together, as well as, independently. I am hoping to be able to introduce “jobs” soon to give the children more responsibility around the classroom and to engage them in more conversations.

 

“See how much the Father loves us! His love is so great that we are called God’s children.”

1 John 3:1

Week 3

                                                                                   “You created every part of me.”

                                                                                                 Psalm 139:13

 

      This has been a different week for me since two of the days I was unable to attend school sick with a fever, nausea, diarrhea, stomach pains, and dizziness. Amber and I both got hit with whatever this thing is, but thankfully the antibiotics worked very quickly for me and I was able to return to school on Friday. I often wonder if God allowed this to happen to give my co-teacher the opportunity to build her confidence in teaching the children and leading the class. She is very capable and catches on quickly, I am very proud of her and her accomplishment in handling all 4 classes by herself in two different days. She said everything went well and the children were on good behavior. She did the afternoon classes completely alone, which they are very well behaved, so can imagine that wasn’t too big of a head ache, and the morning classes she had help for two hours from our hopefully new teacher, Mweemba. So  praise God that he gave me an amazing co-teacher and potentially another great lady to be trained as a teacher in the program here at MOL.

 

As for the children, this week they were introduced to a new letter…the letter “S”. A lot of the children remembered the letter “M” and could read it when I held it up on “Monday” and “Music” at the beginning of the week, the younger ones are still getting a hang of it,  but they have plenty of time to develop their reading skills. A couple of the children recognized the letter “S” before I could even introduce it to them. The children really love Coffee Can Theater and even on the worse days, it seems to grab their attention for the 5-8 minute story about the Zebras in the bush :o)

 

In honor of the letter S, I decided to open the discovery/sensory table and introduce Sand for the children to play  with in class. The first day, I did sand and water, but the water was too messy with the sand to clean up “mud”, so we changed to just sand and another time we will do just water. The children had do much fun working with the different sized containers in the center, sifting through the sand finding there are “small pieces” and “big pieces” of sand. They also said they were using “smaller containers to fill bigger ones”. The children were working together and enjoying their time at the  discovery table.

 

We also completed our series of color exploration with paint. The children worked very hard to discover what color red and yellow would make. Some children hypothesized that red and yellow would make “red”, some said “orange”, and some said “yellow”…a few of the younger children guessed “green” since that is the color we were making in the previous weeks. They also mixed red and blue and discovered the beautiful color purple that comes out of that combination.

 

The children are getting really good at recognizing and sorting colors, I often find the children using the counting bears, or other manipulatives around the room to sort colors. They struggle differentiating between red and purple and then blue and green, but they work together to show each other when one has mixed the two up! I can see their problem solving skills developing more and more each day, through their play.

 

Another new thing that was introduced to the children this week was the formal bible lessons. I have found a great curriculum that works well with the Zambian children and for this age, I am just taking the theme for the week, summarizing the story and then hoping they take away the message that God has for them. This week the lesson was “I am Special”, showing the children how much God cares about them and how he formed each of them different from the others, that there is only one of them in the whole world. We have a puppet friend, Jeremiah, who brings messages from God to the children on Mondays and Tuesdays, and then the rest of the week we take time to do an activity and retell the story in our own words. The children sit so quiet and listen to everything that Jeremiah tells them :o)

 

 

Other exciting news is that the playground area is being cleared. I asked if the  parents of the children would all come, taking turns, to help clear the land in front of the school for the children to have space to play and once Jako returns, for the playground to be worked on. The community rarely does things unless you pay them or very few people show up. So far I have had over 15 families (moms) come to clear the land. They are doing an excellent job and I hear there are still more coming to work, so by the end of next week, I pray and hope the land is level, cleared of big stones, and ready for the children to use. It seems God is using this preschool for more than I can imagine…

 

“God has made us what we are!”

Ephesians 2:10

The Many Faces of Mince

For the past two weeks, Jako has been out of the bush and enjoying Root Beer and Dairy Queen in the states. I know, we all pity him and feel sorry for him back here in the bush…hehe. With the school opening and so much to get done before he left, we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare too creatively for his time away in the kitchen. Thankfully so, Jako made sure we had enough meat, bread, milk, and other necessities to last for awhile…however, in the meat department we found there was not a lot of variety. To our enjoyment, we found we had about 10 packages of mince meat (ground beef), 1 package of chicken, 1 package of minute steaks, and 2 steak stir fry’s, very heavy on the mince. Well in all our wisdom, we decided to dig right in and try to eat some mince and spread out the other meat, two weeks into it we realize that we have eaten mince every day except one night when we had the minute steaks. So this blog is dedicated to sharing how we creatively have eaten mince, in the bush, for the past two weeks…
I have to be honest with you…our inspiration for all this came from the one and only Forrest Gump!! That’s right! I am sure you remember the scene when Forrest and Bubba were on the shrimp boat and Bubba clarifies the versatility of shrimp…
 

“Anyway, like I was sayin’, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbeque it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. Dey’s uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That-that’s about it.”

Well out here in Mukamba, mince is the fruit of the bush…Let’s see, there is:

• Mince Nachos 
• Mince and Mushroom Sauce 
• Mince Pizza
• Mince Spaghetti
• Mince Sloppy Joe’s
• Mince Meatloaf                                      
• Mince Taco Salad
• Mince Lasagna Bake
• Mince Burgers
• Mince Sandwiches
• Mince and Potatoes

In addition, there are many other varieties of mince that we have not yet discovered. I think we have just about all of these dishes the last two weeks, however, with the uniqueness of each dish, it doesn’t feel like we have only eaten ground beef recently.

This next week’s menu looks to be a bit different adding some chicken and steak to the mince mix!

If you have any other creative ways to use mince, please send them my way ASAP…we still have a couple packages of mince left :o)

 

I cannot promise that ALL of our dishes look amazing as these dishes, but i am sure they taste just as good!!