It blows me away sometimes how God's plans can definitely be quite different than our own (I think there is a chicken fighting for its life in the kitchen as I write this, so I will try to stay focused). I came into this weekend to once again have the opportunity to teach somewhere between 50-90 students again. Friday came about and there were 20-24 students who came to the extra teaching time that I am providing through ACEM for Primary 8 Students. I was much more confident this time through, and I hope the students learned more. I definitely think we had more fun. We played Simon Says to work on their English listening skills, I learned their names, we played with fire a bit, found out who the first polygamist in the Bible was: a foolproof mixture for learning and fun if you ask me.
After this I went home and started to prepare for students at 2 different schools on Saturday. I showed up Saturday morning at the first school, and take a guess how many students were there. ONE! Technically two, but the boy left to spend time with his father and he forgot the questions he had at home. So instead of teaching the brilliant lesson plan I had worked on, I sat for about 2 hours with this girl, who was the same age as me with 2 children in Primary 8, working on SST. Being slightly discouraged by the lack of students showing up, I went home for lunch, delicious bread, gnut paste and honey... my favourite!!! The afternoon came quickly as I went to the last school of my weekend. 2 o'clock came around and 2 students came rolling in. I thought oh boy, here we go again. Well by the time we were done around 8 students had come. More or less, we did the same thing at this school though. I told them give me your questions and we will work on them together. By this time I was not all that discourage by the lack of students coming out (mainly because I told myself it is because of a lack of communication this week as I got sick and was unable to visit the schools). Instead I was able to focus more on relationship building, but also I was able to learn another lesson. These students need this extra teaching, but more than that they need resources to study. Only few students actually have a textbook (most in sad shape), or bible, or any other resource they need to do assignments or study from home. So, I am now hoping to establish some sort of after school drop in tutoring center. That being said, I would love for (there goes the chicken again) any advice from those who might be more knowledgeable about such things on how best to implement something like this. Also, I have been asked for a bunch of English Bibles, which to buy here are a bit expensive, so I was wondering if anyone from back home would be willing to donate some?? On top of that, please pray as more projects are now in the works and we hope to get some more work done in the next month and a bit.
Two other quick stories to share with you. On Thursday I hosted my first Bible Study here in Mundri. I was able to borrow a guitar from a fellow kawaja here, and I invited a bunch of friends over. Only 4 people came out, but we had some fun playing and singing songs on the guitar together praising God. We then sang some songs in Moru and Arabic. This was all followed by eating together and digging into God's work in Moru and English. This week, I am praying that God will take it and expand it so that it can continue to grow and that I can continue to speak into young people's lives here through God's word.
Finally, I must say that today I am very very sore. This is because yesterday there was a football match, and I got to play. A few weeks ago a group of the best players from Mundri here all got to go to the capital city of the state to go play in a football tournament. The boys made it to the semi finals so they did awesome. However, now that they are back, many of the players who did not go want to prove that they should have been on the team. As a result, last night the left behinds (aka. Red Stars) played the team that went to Yambio. I made the Red Stars as a reserve, BooYah! The final score 5-3 for the team from Yambio. We did pretty good though, put up a decent fight for sure.
That is all for now,
Love you all and thank you so much for your prayers
Thomas
*Prayer Requests
-School building project proposal
-Supplementary Teaching Time
-After school tutoring center
-Provision of Bibles
-Team from America here to do water sanitation training
-My good friend Scott heads back stateside at the end of the month and he will be sadly missed so please pray for his last 2 weeks here and also for all of the young men he has had an opportunity to impact while he is here.
After this I went home and started to prepare for students at 2 different schools on Saturday. I showed up Saturday morning at the first school, and take a guess how many students were there. ONE! Technically two, but the boy left to spend time with his father and he forgot the questions he had at home. So instead of teaching the brilliant lesson plan I had worked on, I sat for about 2 hours with this girl, who was the same age as me with 2 children in Primary 8, working on SST. Being slightly discouraged by the lack of students showing up, I went home for lunch, delicious bread, gnut paste and honey... my favourite!!! The afternoon came quickly as I went to the last school of my weekend. 2 o'clock came around and 2 students came rolling in. I thought oh boy, here we go again. Well by the time we were done around 8 students had come. More or less, we did the same thing at this school though. I told them give me your questions and we will work on them together. By this time I was not all that discourage by the lack of students coming out (mainly because I told myself it is because of a lack of communication this week as I got sick and was unable to visit the schools). Instead I was able to focus more on relationship building, but also I was able to learn another lesson. These students need this extra teaching, but more than that they need resources to study. Only few students actually have a textbook (most in sad shape), or bible, or any other resource they need to do assignments or study from home. So, I am now hoping to establish some sort of after school drop in tutoring center. That being said, I would love for (there goes the chicken again) any advice from those who might be more knowledgeable about such things on how best to implement something like this. Also, I have been asked for a bunch of English Bibles, which to buy here are a bit expensive, so I was wondering if anyone from back home would be willing to donate some?? On top of that, please pray as more projects are now in the works and we hope to get some more work done in the next month and a bit.
Two other quick stories to share with you. On Thursday I hosted my first Bible Study here in Mundri. I was able to borrow a guitar from a fellow kawaja here, and I invited a bunch of friends over. Only 4 people came out, but we had some fun playing and singing songs on the guitar together praising God. We then sang some songs in Moru and Arabic. This was all followed by eating together and digging into God's work in Moru and English. This week, I am praying that God will take it and expand it so that it can continue to grow and that I can continue to speak into young people's lives here through God's word.
Finally, I must say that today I am very very sore. This is because yesterday there was a football match, and I got to play. A few weeks ago a group of the best players from Mundri here all got to go to the capital city of the state to go play in a football tournament. The boys made it to the semi finals so they did awesome. However, now that they are back, many of the players who did not go want to prove that they should have been on the team. As a result, last night the left behinds (aka. Red Stars) played the team that went to Yambio. I made the Red Stars as a reserve, BooYah! The final score 5-3 for the team from Yambio. We did pretty good though, put up a decent fight for sure.
That is all for now,
Love you all and thank you so much for your prayers
Thomas
*Prayer Requests
-School building project proposal
-Supplementary Teaching Time
-After school tutoring center
-Provision of Bibles
-Team from America here to do water sanitation training
-My good friend Scott heads back stateside at the end of the month and he will be sadly missed so please pray for his last 2 weeks here and also for all of the young men he has had an opportunity to impact while he is here.
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