May Highlights

11th May

On the Sunday afternoon, the dance group at church held their annual concert. I am the newest member of the 'LT Warriors' and Anna and Kathryn also go. I was only in two dances and therefore took on the role as backstage runner! I basically ran around the whole church for about three hours, looking for dance groups and youth leaders and presenters and sound desk guys and the LT Warriors themselves! All good fun! The concert went really well and the guys are such talented dancers. We have made such great friendships within LT and are so grateful for the fellowship we can share with them.

20th May

We've come to love Tuesdays and Wednesdays as it means we go to school! Ruth Mother Care is such a lovely school and we've built up such a relationship with them. The children are truly are joy to teach. 

I spend both days in Nursery class and we're still working on phonics and blending sounds to make words. The children are very good at remembering all the actions which is encouraging!

This is Kembabazi and her younger brother Patric. Kembabazi is in Top Class and is very bright. She has surprisingly good English and always calls the other children up on speaking Luganda, "Teacher! This one is speaking vernacular!". Patric is in Baby Class and is only 2 and a half! Whenever I ask for a volunteer to come up and write on the blackboard, he always wanders over and tries to join in. When Patric first joined the school he was a bit wary of us and our white skin, but now he's settled he happily gives us cuddles and beaming smiles.

Before the children broke up for Easter Holidays, we gave out school cardigans and new shoes (I'm pretty sure I blogged about it). It's so nice seeing all of them coming to school in their new things and their feet can now stay dry when it rains!

Talking of rain... On our way home we usually walk for about 20 minutes before getting a boda boda. Anna and KJ got the accelerator-junkie boda driver and so sped off home, Jon following on a second boda. Susie and I were at the back, only about two minutes behind. We weren't far from home when it started to rain. Now Uganda does not do rain by halves, when it rains, it RAINS. The Heavens opened and we just got soaked! At one point I couldn't even open my eyes from the amount of water pouring down my face. We couldn't stop laughing!

 23rd May

My favourite time of the week. Children's club at FBC! There were so many children this week that we took them outside for games and songs. The Hokey Kokey was so much fun and attracted a bit of an audience! I also got to show off my new luganda after I had learnt "I love you Jesus, deep down in my heart".

The story this week was of Barnabas, the blind man healed by Jesus. This month I am in charge of big class's story so I got some of them blindfolded and asked them to guess the object. They were much too good at it! Every week we learn a new memory verse and the children are a lot better at remembering them than me, even though they are learning it in their second language!

Girls with their colouring sheets

27th & 28th May

RMC. Tuesday started with phonics in Nursery Class. This lesson always finishes with the A-Z of animals pop-up book as the children adore it! We look up the letters we have been working on and see what animal is behind the window. You should hear how they squeal when the animal pops out! I always ask them to pick a few letters at the end and it's always interesting when they choose 'u' as the picture is a 'unicornfish'?!

After break, Susie led an art lesson! We did texture rubbing - where you put the paper over an interesting pattern, like a tree or bricks and use a crayon to imprint it on the paper. That wasn't a very good explanation but I'm hoping you know what I'm referring to. 

The children don't usually do activities like this but I think they really enjoyed it. They were super proud of their work anyway!

At lunchtime I sat down on a tree stump outside as the children were playing. Teacher Monica then told all the children to go and get their chairs as I was going to tell them a story! Ok! I went for Goldilocks and the Three Bears, which ended up being translated as the three birds... but they got the general idea.

It was a day of stories as I then told Nursery Class the story of Moses, complete with actions!

Today we are off to children's club. Please pray for the two clubs and the teams. I have been ill over the last couple of days so please pray for healing, I'm feeling much better today so praise God for that. 

Please continue to pray for the children we work with. A lot of them come from families living in poverty and only eat one or two meals a day. 

I will leave you with this photo of my wonderful Tina. This is what happens when you leave your sticker sheet out on the side at kids club!!