The village life is still awesome and I still wouldn’t mind staying here for a long time. It rains just about everyday and sometimes twice a day, but it’s nice because it cools everything off. Thankfully we have not encountered too many spiders or othere creepy crawlies just gnats and mosquitoes (don’t worry mom I’m taking my malaria meds and putting on bug spray).
This week we started teaching english! We taught Monday-Wednesday and it was a blast. I am teaching 9th grade english, and there are only four students. The school system here is really lackadaisical. It’s to the point of classes only being 45 minutes and they have a 15 minute break after the first two classes and then lunch after the fourth one. When they go to lunch they just go to their homes and then walk back to school for class an hour later. It’s safe to say we have a lot of free time in between the english classes we teach. The students learn 4 different languages in school including english. I have also been helping Katie teach the first graders english, and there are only 4 of them. The 9th graders are learning comparative and superlatives of words and the first graders are learning numbers 1-20 and how to spell the word form of the numbers.
We worship every night with some of the students and we sing songs with them and share a bible story with them. After that we play a game with them and then they go do homework. Their definition of homework is not the same as ours in America. Their definition of homework is working on things they didn’t understand in class that day. Therefore, these kids are devoted to learning and they value it so much more than we do in the States. After worship one evening I had one of the first graders come up to me and ask me to help her with her english. It was so cool because she wanted to learn and get better at it. The Lord is a God of small details and I believe that’s how he speaks to me the most.
Thursdays and Fridays are our evangelism days. So today (Friday) a couple of us went on a prayer walk through the village and we saw some of our students. We really had no plan but to just keep walking and keep a “yes” in our hearts to where the Lord led us. Before we travelled very far Katie said, “I hope we get invited into someones house.” We kept walking and saw this path to the side and there was a small bamboo house and there was a man standing outside of it. He didn’t speak any english, but we prayed for him and he seemed to understand that that was what we were doing. We thanked him for allowing us to pray for him and then kept walking. We found a store that had snacks and toilet paper (what a luxury) and then kept walking. Then we went down a road and we heard someone playing music. So we followed the music and happened upon a house and there were a bunch a guys playing electric guitar and drums. They invited us in and we talked to them about Jesus and even sang some worship songs with them.
This village is so special and it is one big community that is like one whole family. They help each other without expecting anything in return, which is so Christlike. It’s beautiful how in this village they have everything they could ever need and they don’t ever complain or want anything more.
This month as a team we are praying for one teammate a day, and it is so cool how we are becoming more and more like a family. We have so much time to soak in the Lord’s presence and see what he is doing here. We thrive in the outskirts of the countries and are constantly wanting more of what the Lord has to offer us.
Thank you for your constant support, prayers, and encouragement!
