Holiday Program

 

 

Most of you know that problem we had at the beginning of the year since the grade 1 and 2 building was not completed last year.  The parents complained greatly that there was no place for their children here and no place at the community school…so all the children who graduated the preschool last year have been sitting at home with no school to go to.  April is our holiday month where we close the preschool for one month for the teachers and kids to have a break.  This year I thought it might be possible to run a “mock grade 1 program” for the children who have not been going to school.  I asked Medis if she would be interested in running the program or if she would even have time since April is prime harvesting month.  She said that she would love to run the program, we would just have to do it in the afternoons. 

So Medis and I sat down and created some lesson plans for the program, introducing the children to new things they haven’t yet done…teaching more Enlgish and Chitonga, enhancing their critical thinking skills, extra fun art projects, cool science experiments, and introducing grade 1 math concepts to the kids. 

This children have completed 2 weeks of this holiday program being introduced to dinosaurs, volcanoes, counting by 5’s and 10’s, basic addition, critical thinking problems, nature collages, light and shadows, color mixing, and much more from all their dramatic play throughout the school day.  In the coming weeks we hope to introduce more rhyming words to the kids, have them author and illustrate a class story, introduce subtraction, build on the other skills they have learned, create wire sculpture, make sun catchers, and explore with various materials in their discovery table. I am having a blast with our kids from last year, getting to do so much more with them and working with them inside the classroom one last time before moving away.  I think Medis and the children are having having a great time with this program…we just pray it will be enough to catch them up and prepare them for what comes next.

 

We are planning for this group of kids to be able to come to school and learn a few things for this month and God-willing the other holidays months too.  Our hope is to catch them up as much as we can with grade one objectives, so that in January, this group of kids can start in grade 2, leaving grade 1 open for the 30 kids graduating from preschool this year.  It has been quite the struggle to figure out how we can get all the children into a classroom next year and I think we have ironed out a loose plan from our end, but now we need the community to do their part in building the school!! 

New Sunday School Teachers

 

For two years, I have been working with the church in Mukamba teaching Sunday School and hoping to set a model that the adults can carry on if I were to leave.  Well my departure date is coming up, so a couple months ago, I thought it was time to ask some of the church members to step up as Sunday School teachers.  We said the more teachers we have the easier it will be so that they could switch Sundays and each have time in bible study, as well as teaching the young children.  The next Sunday we had two young men committed to teaching Sunday School.  We had a short meeting with them to give them some guidelines about teaching young children and a list of stories with references in the bible.  Then they would rotate each week taking turns teaching and going to their bible study. 

So far the two guys have been doing a great job!  If one does not show up, the other teacher is there to teach the children.  Some Sundays they read the story from the bible, while other Sunday’s they tell the story and even get the children to act it out!  The kids are enjoying having teaching in their own language much more than having to translate from English.  It seems that the children are retaining more information as well, since I see some kids participate which have rarely spoke in the past, either because they are shy or don’t understand the story. 

We now have a third teacher who joined the team and has a lot of experience teaching Sunday School.  He will be a great addition to the teachers and hopefully they will enjoy teaching every third Sunday, instead of every other Sunday.  Please be praying for these brave men who undertook a very challenging task in the church.  Pray for encouragement from within the church community, as well from the children.  Pray that God fills them with amazing ideas in how to teach the children and make it fun for them.  Pray that God also changes their lives from the experiences of working with the children and learning from the children too.  The children have several games they enjoy playing after our lesson, so it will be interesting to see if the teachers play the games with the kids as time goes on.

 

Praise be to God for His perfect plans and timing for all things…Praise be to Him for raising these teachers up and sustaining them with knowledge and wisdom!!

Making Masks with Moms…

 

                                                     

  

Yesterday we had the most amazing time with Mom’s visiting the Twana Little School.  We invited them to come and do a special project with their children.  Last year, the Moms loved the opportunity to come and make homemade beads with their little ones, embracing the newness of the school and their children’s learning.   This year, many more mom’s came to enjoy this special moment at school.  The teacher’s thought it would be a lot of fun to make plaster masks of the children’s faces, which is not an easy feat. 

 

The Moms came at the beginning of the school day, played outside with the children, and then moved inside for morning meeting and a bible lesson.  After the morning routine was completed, and most of the Moms and children had arrived, we gave a short tutorial on how to make a plaster mask on a child’s face.  The Moms looked very confused, but intrigued at the idea of making the mask…

 

We split the Moms and children in half, having some go outside to start making masks, while the others participated in Choice Time in the classroom.  Outside the classroom, the Moms got busy applying Vaseline to the faces followed by the plaster strips.  I am sure the children were a bit apprehensive at first, but they all did great, trusting their Moms not to get anything in their eyes or nose. 

Inside the classroom, the children had drawn pictures of their Moms and wrote “what makes their mom special” at the bottom of the page.  The Moms thoroughly enjoyed seeing themselves on the wall and reading what their children thought of them!  After much encouragement from the teachers, they loosened up and began to “play” with their children.  Moms were doing puzzles, dressing up , dancing, reading books, playing with animals, driving trucks, and much more. 

At the end of the day, everyone had a huge smile on their face!!  The teachers were hanging on by a thread, after two full classes of Moms and projects, but they did amazing.  I am so proud of the way God is using the preschool as a means to bring the community together laughing, learning, and socializing.  The teachers are doing a wonderful job of getting everyone involved and keeping it fun and interesting!  Please be praying for these teachers and the roles God has them in!  Even if they don’t realize it, He is using them for His big plans in Mukamba…so they need all the strength they can get!!

              

‘Cool’ Science Ramps and Marbles

 

A new addition to the school this year is our Light and Shadow Studio.  In this space, the children have the opportunity to work with various materials on a light table exploring: shapes, colors, textures, shadows, light, and many other fun things.  At some point, a few of the children found the marbles and they were very intrigued with how the light would shine through them.  They kept them in the cup and shined their flash lights through them observing what what happening. 

                           

One day, they decided to put the marbles on the table.  The moment they released the marbles onto the light table, gravity took over.  They started chasing the marbles with their hands to keep them from rolling off the table.  Thank you to our builder who did not level the floor properly for this ‘cool science’ moment.  The teachers all thought it would be a great idea to provide ramps of different heights and surfaces for the children to explore with marbles…so we did:

 

                                     

   “The marbles run faster if you put them on the higher side.”

                                        -Pensive

 

 

 

“The small marbles roll very fast.” – Florence

                                                          

 

“The big marbles run faster than the small marbles.”  -Kain

 

               

             “The marbles spread out all over the surface when you let them go.”

                                                               -Venture

 

 

 

 

 

“When there is no ramp, the marbles go very slow.”  -Chanto

Measuring Mayhem!!

 

We are so blessed to have a wood working space for the children outside.  The older ones have been very involved in building things with scraps of wood, hammers, and nails.  While they were making their creations, some became very interested in the tape measure.  They started measuring the table, the wood pieces, their hammers, and anything else they could find.  What fun math they were already doing and we decided to support it by putting many other measuring tools inside the classroom to use during choice time as well.  The children went crazy measuring anything and everything they could from the items in math center, to the morning meeting rug, to the walls of the classroom, to their friends, and so much more.  Here are some learning moments we had with the children during their week of measuring mayhem:

                                    

 

Teacher:      What can you do if you want to know how tall someone is?

Sonya:         You measure them.

Teacher:      What can you use to measure them?

Sanford:       A toy (pointing to tape measure).

All:              A ruler.

Teacher:       What other things can we use to measure?

Fransiscar:   A stick.

Ruth:           Some grass.

Sonya:          A rope.

Teacher:       What were you doing at the math center?

Sanford:       Measuring.

Teacher:       What things were you measuring?

Oripa:           Our friends at school.

Jobby:           The table.

Anita:            Pipes.

Teacher:        Did you all use the same thing to measure?

All:                No.

Teacher:        What different things did you use?

Jobby:            A ruler.

Orient:           Grass.

Loson:           Tape measure.

 

 

Fain:              Look Florence, I am taller than you.

Memorial:      I am taller than you.

Kain:              No, I am taller than all of you.

Teacher:         What can we do to find out who is the tallest?

Kain:              We can use a tape measure.

Teacher:         So, who is the tallest?

Kain:              Fain is taller then me.

Crinet:           Chanto, hold here so we can measure this rag.

Teacher:         What is the length of this rag?

Chanto:          I don’t know.

Teacher:         Let’s count these numbers…

Chanto:          One…two!

Teacher:         Yes, two meters long!  Nice counting!

Ackinstone:    Look, I am measuring these blocks.

Rachel:            I want to count how many feet are in this ruler. 

How Deep is the Love of Christ…

 

Yesterday, I was sitting and thinking about the children at school.  They always impress me, but this year especially with the way they seemed to pick up right where we left off in November.  The younger class is so vibrant with joy and excitement about the new things in the school and the older ones taking confidence in teaching their new friends how to explore and use everything we have in the classroom.  For some reason, my mind drifted back to this time last year and how different everything was: the children, their behavior, their mindset, their play, their smiles, their knowledge, etc.  In that moment, the Holy Spirit filled me with the greatest JOY I have ever experienced, a small glimpse at the heart of God.  My eyes were opened to “why” God provided money for the school, gave me knowledge to do what He asked me to do, provided all the things for the school, hand picked each child for each class, brought these specific teachers here, and every other detail that fell into place over the past two years.  I can’t put it into words, but this realization brought tears to my eyes and chills through my body. 

 

 

Our 4 and 5 year olds this year are way ahead of where our 5 and 6 year olds started last year.  They are confident in who God has made them to be, in their ability to learn, to write, to read, to play, to answer questions, to speak English words, to show off their sign language, to make music, to create things, to paint, and to express all the other “languages” their Creator gave to them.  When we are all created, God intended for His children to embrace all the talents, hobbies, interests that He gave us (our different “languages”); however, we know that these are commonly taken away by our society, parents, teachers, and other adults in our lives…but now God has blessed these children with the opportunity to get back those “languages”, to do what they were created to do, to find their voice among the others, to embrace the individuality they were born with, above all to glorify God for His Provision and Sovereignty in their lives. 

My whole life I have heard about God’s Plans, God’s Power, God’s Sovereignty, God’s Love, God’s Mercy and there are too many times to count for the ways He has proven faithful in all those areas in my life.  Somehow, this moment, with these children here in Zambia tops it all…I feel like I saw God, face to face, in that moment of experiencing how deep His Love runs for all of us He created.  These children are gaining so much from such a little school, in the middle of no where…because it is consumed by the Spirit of God Himself!  O how great a God we serve, how Mighty is His Name in all the earth!!

 

“How great are His signs, how mighty His wonders!  His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation.”  Daniel 4:3

 

 

 

“There is none like You, O Lord; You are great, and your name is great in might.”

Jeremiah 10:6

22 Kilometers, Flooded Rivers, and Bare Feet…

 

This past weekend is definitely one for the books…a weekend I will never forget!!

Friday night, Jako and crew were headed back from Lusaka when he broke the side shaft on the Land Rover and was forced to drive the flooded, muddy bush roads in two wheel drive.  After getting stuck for the 5th time, they finally called us and asked if we could get to them in the quad to bring Jako back to drive the Hilux out to assist in getting the Land Rover and crew home.  At this time it was 10 pm and Rachael and I volunteered to take the quad out in search of them.  Since the water is so high, we had to be very careful not to get the quad underwater, so driving only by the light of a head lamp, we navigated around the deep puddles/rivers (mainly on footpaths) and happily found Jako and crew driving toward us already getting unstuck from when they called us.  The roads felt very eerie being the only ones out there as the darkness surrounded our quad, many times we called out to God, asking for His Presence to guide us in the path to take around the flooded plains.  He definitely showed up and even blessed us with headlights (which didn’t work at all) at times during our drive, but them turned them off when there were big challenges forcing us to rely on Him and walk by faith.  While we were all headed back to the house, the Land Rover got stuck really bad and we had to go fetch the Hilux.  Praise God we were able to wench the Land Rover out from the back with the Hilux and then made it back safely with all the vehicles home by 2:30am. 

Saturday…Jako had left the trailer about halfway back to town with a small village since it was too heavy to bring back with only 2 wheel drive.  So Rachael, Travis, Jakob, and myself decided to go with Jako to retrieve the trailer that afternoon.  We left camp around 4pm and got to the trailer around 5pm in the Hilux and Jako just drove right up to the village and before we opened the doors, all 4 wheels just sunk in the mud.  We were stuck and stuck bad…we go to start cutting logs and Jako starts getting the hi-lift jack ready and then realized he took the attachment out for the Land Rover and never put it back, so we had no jack to lift the car with.  It was not about 5:20 and we decided to just walk home…neither of us had brought our cell phones so we had no communication with Amber or anyone back home.  We grab Jakob and start our 22 kilometer walk home…the roads were rocky, mudding, flooded, grassy, slippery so we all walked barefoot in order to make it back.  We arrived around 9:15 with cuts, blisters, vey wet clothing, a sleeping 3 year old, and super sore feet.  Now we have the quad and Land Rover, but no Hilux or trailer!!

Sunday…we need to go dig out the Hilux and bring it back with the trailer.  Rachael, Jako, and I hop on the quad and start off late morning.  We get almost there (an hour drive) and realize we forgot the key for the Hilux, so we turn around and go back.  Round Two…we arrive at the village, Praise God it is a warm, sunny day with no threats of rain!!  The guys had already cut a lot of logs and even built the bridge to get us out.  We tried once quickly to see if it was enough, but there was too much water and mid under the tires for that to work, so we lifted the car and put logs and stones under the tires.  Then we tried again and we got out!!  Once we got the trailer hooked up, Jako drove the Hilux back and Rachael and I drove the quad.  The quad ride was so much more fun in the daylight where we could splash through the mud and puddles with glee. 

                                  

 

We thank God for His protection over us through all the nights of getting stuck, walking, driving, and “wenching” we had to do.  It is safe to say that we will never forget this adventurous weekend that brought us closer to one another and our Protector!!