So we head off for our last day of ministry. It starts off a little slow. We tried to track down and visit Lainee, one of the gals we had met while talking to others on the street. She had extended an invitation to visit her at work, we tried but she was not there. We headed off to the school to help tutor, since we had promised the other teams we would do so after trying to invest in Lainee.
So we are chilling at the school and get our first group of kids, there is one for each of us to help tutor. It’s a struggle, they are little and do not speak a ton of English. So working away on different subjects depending on what the kids needed help on. You could see the flashes of frustration come across each of our faces. Then someone decides “ooohhh lets work on words with them,” so a bunch of words get written on the board, we have each of them grab their chair and scrap it across the floor so they are re-positioned in front of the board and have them say the words as we point to them.
Well the time for the small group we had was coming to a close, and the gal that was coordinating the groups comes in, takes in what we are doing, and quickly asks could you/would you? be willing to take an entire classroom? it’s about 16 students, she tells us. We kind of look around at one another slightly wide eye and quickly reply with an “um. Sure.”
Now, you should know that we had literally found out maybe 24 hours before that we will be teaching kindergarten next month. Can you say GOD moment, of here’s your taste test of what is to come?? mind blown. Dang. Way to be just be thrown into it all.
Now I am sure you are wondering dang how the heck do you make that work, and know we were getting these kids for a good probably 45 minutes. Well not ruin the ending but we really did kind of rock it.
So the kids shuffle in, and we immediately direct them to sit down in the seat that are in front of the white board. The squirrely ones of course have made there way to the back row, so I sat down next to them to try and help keep them in line. We explained to them that we are all playing the quiet game, and they need to Lock their lips together and turn in the key to us. Next we started explaining the word game to them, “when we point to a word you need to say it out loud.” Immediately, (well ok, not immediately but maybe half way through) Emily jumps up and writes down on another board a piece of scripture for them to do motions with, and memorize. So after the word game reaches it’s peak, with ease we jump in to memorizing scripture. As soon as that reaches it’s peak, Chelsey and Lindy jump up and have the kids move to standing in another corner in front of them and start the HEAD, SHOULDERS, KNEES and TOES song. Imagine many voices whether it be deep, high pitches, and under water style.
No it wasn’t all perfect, we tried to group them up for a battle of the teams math game that gave them too much time to loose focus in what we were doing.
But God gives us grace. It was a beautiful image of what our team is capable of and how well we already do playing off one another’s strengths. The little mistakes can be learned from, but don’t think they define the entire experience. Count the successes to, because those speak to your strengths, and those strengths are a beautiful gift. We ended up with two whole classes that day. Blessing teachers with a mini break at the beginning of their day (middle of there morning). Going into next month we get to have a healthy confidence that as a team we can/will be able to work with young kids. That as a team we can come together and thrive naturally off of one another’s talents.
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Adventures in Missions
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