Hoots, mon!

We’ve had the Scottish team with us for just about a week now. Last Friday we had lunch together to meet each other and talk about the After School Program (which is also why I didn’t get around to blogging last week).

Introducing the team to the kids: Zara, Carol, Pip, J-W, Richard, Kathleen, Cherith (& Kauna)

In total 13 people have come as part of the team, but only 7 or 8 of them come to After School (the others are busy with different projects). They have been helping the kids during the normal homework/study time, and then running a program for the kids in place of the usual daily activities.

Zara & Richard learning one of "our" songs

And it has been going really well! The kids hear a story from the Bible, learn a memory verse, have a daily quiz on what’s been covered on previous days, and then either do some craft or play games. The theme is what it’s like to be on Jesus’ team and is sports-oriented.

J-W entertains the kids with Joseph, the puppet

The kids have been split up into 4 teams: the Lions (Grades 1 and 2), the Springboks (Grades 3 and 4), the Wildcats (Grades 5 and 6) and the Angels (Grade 7s and high school). Yes, the kids chose the names themselves, but I suspect the leaders came up with the Lions’ team chant which goes, “What do LIONS eat? Springbok!”. The kids do craft and play games in their teams. For learning the memory verses and answering questions they get a sticker on their name badges.

"We're Springboks!" (Grade 3 kids)

So the Scots will run the program one last day (on Monday) and will then have a party for the kids on Tuesday, their last day here. They’ve done excellently, getting to know the kids, helping us out and running their program. We’ll be sad to see them go!

Carol & Cherith helping the Grade 1s and 2s to "do the hokey-pokey"

United Nations
After School has had quite an International flavour lately as last week 3 young ladies from Canada also started helping. Danelle, Melanie and Carly are all nursing students and are here through AIM (Africa Inland Mission) doing a short-term nursing practical at the State Hospital. They’re learning a lot about medical practice in Africa! Their nursing prac is only in the mornings, so on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons they just walk “down the street” (okay, it is down the main street – Independence Ave – but it’s at least a kilometre and a half!) to the church. They love working with the kids, especially the smaller ones. Melanie and Carly will only be here for a few more weeks, but Danelle is staying until the end of August.

Familiar faces
And seeing it’s mid-year break for the tertiary students, Kauna and Absalom are both back at After School, helping out until school starts again for them towards the end of July.

Updates…
Still have to get the final editing done for the DVD presentation, so I’ll be glad when that’s finished and I can send it off to my dad.

Yes, the rugby team did return victorious from Senegal…just! They won a close encounter 9-5. According to Hauta, the home ground advantage was used to its fullest and the Namibians were intimidated into quite a few mistakes. But all’s well that ends well. The next qualifier will be in August.

Progress

I’ve been busy working on a DVD presentation about EBCAIDS, which is why I’ve been a bit quiet lately. It’s mainly to send to my dad in Australia so he can talk about our work. But if anyone’s interested let me know!

After School is still going well – we passed the attendance high of 67 kids from the other week: on Monday we had 70.

We’ve done the Life Skills group with the kids from Grade 6 to Grade 10 for the last two weeks and it’s gone really well. Hauta wasn’t there the first Monday, but helped out last week and did a great job. The kids are all eager to discuss the questions and give their opinions. The first lesson was on what it means to be unique vs copying other people. And last week was on sexual pressure. That sure generated a lot of discussion, and so we didn’t get through the whole lesson. Seeing tomorrow is a school holiday (in celebration of the Day of the African Child), we’ve decided to do life skills on Wednesday in place of Bible Club. Sutuu, Lazarus and Mercia will do a similar program (but age-appropriate) for the younger kids.

The main reason for finishing the lesson this week is that for the following two weeks we’ll have a team from the Gilcomston South Church of Scotland working with the After School Program. They’ll be running a VBS (Vacation Bible School)–style program in place of all our normal activities, so if we don’t finish the life skills this week that one lesson will be done over 4 weeks!

Sutuu was in charge of Bible Club last week and did an excellent job teaching the kids that knowing what God says in His Word is important to help us grow. It’s so great to see these guys taking on responsibility and handling it well.

We said goodbye to Hauta on Tuesday – as he WAS selected for the national team and headed off on Wednesday to Senegal to play a qualifier for the 2011 Rugby World Cup. He was definitely looking forward to the experience. Unfortunately we still don’t know what happened…news seems to be a bit slow coming out of West Africa! He’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully with good news of a win.

Well that’s all for now – please keep us in your prayers, especially as we finish up the DVD, and for the Scottish team arriving at the end of this week.