The Weekend

I'm behind on this blog. AND I just wrote a really long catch-up post, and I accidentally deleted the whole thing!!! UGH. :( So, I'm going to do my best to catch up- and hopefully not leave out important details in my frustration!

So, here's what I was up to this weekend:

Friday:
I spent the day at school. I wasn't expecting to teach, but I ended up teaching English to grade 6 almost the entire day. In the morning, the 6th grade teacher introduced me to the class and told them not to act up just because I was "mzungu" (a white person/non-Kenyan). I had to laugh at that. :) Then, I thought I was going to observe that teacher so I could learn the routines of how things are done here..but, he left right after the introduction and I was on my own! I had just received a copy of the students' book and some chalk minutes before. I had no idea what to do, I wasn't prepared, and I felt very afraid of the responsibility that was suddenly handed to me without warning...but, I said a quick prayer that I would be a blessing to the kids and teach them what God wanted to me to teach. I opened up to page 1 of their textbook and started from there...I know that's not an ideal way to teach and it isn't my typical style, but in the moment I didn't know what else to do. So, the kids and I read a story and did some comprehension/vocabulary exercises and played some name games to fill the time. I really focused on trying to get to know them and learn their names as I built a rapport with them. I know God was with me and he enabled me to communicate well with the students. I was struck by how comfortable I felt right away, despite being unprepared (which I hated), but the students told me they enjoyed my lesson so that made me feel a lot better!!! Also, I was encouraged by the similarities that these students have to the 6th graders I taught in Flushing- they were motivated to gain the acceptance of their peers, they loved competition when we played a game, they wanted to chat, they laughed with me, they were kind, funny, and generally self-assured. It is always so fun to work with kids at that age!! :) Now that I have had a chance to prepare for tomorrow's lesson, I'm really looking forward to being with the students again!

Saturday:
Saturday was a great day!! I went the church in Karen to work with the team from the US that is here right now. We had a few projects to work on, but we finished relatively early (some of the guys were still working on a construction project for a 2-story building that is going to be a Sunday school room and preschool, but that was out of my league to help with!). So, I found a group of kids who were hanging out near the church and started playing with them. (I love that there is always plenty of children around here to have fun with!). One of the other ladies on the team (Sara) is a 2nd grade teacher, so she and I gathered up the kids on a grassy spot outside the church. We had a beach ball so we started playing with that. (There were about 20-25 kids aged 1-14ish). We batted around the beach ball until it popped on a tree branch, and then I asked the kids to teach us some of their Kenyan games. Many games here involve circling up and doing some sort of hand clap or dance while chanting a memorized poem or song. It's so fun! One of the games we played involved laying our hands on top of one another's and clapping around the circle, one at a time, while saying a poem/rhyme about washing clothes. Eventually when the poem stopped, the person who it stopped on was "out". I made it to the last two people standing, but then I got out. After playing the hand clap games, we taught them duck, duck, goose- which was a lot of fun!! The kids loved running around and they laughed when we tried to say the word "run" in Swahili as they ran around the circle. :) After that, some of the girls wanted to braid mine and Sara's hair, so we let them. It was a painful experience- I don't think they realized how tightly they braid and how hard they were tugging our fine, mzungu hair! haha. Overall Saturday morning/early afternoon was just one of those times where everything is right with the world- there was so much joy and laugher and I just knew I was exactly where God wanted me in that moment and I was giving love to exactly who God wanted me to give love to. It was a fulfilling, fun, joyful time spent with the kids! I got to play, cuddle, take pictures, laugh, joke, give high fives, and talk with the kids. Such a perfect day! :)

After playing with the kiddos, I helped a few of the Kenyan guys clean out a room behind the church that I think is going to be used for a house. The room, like many houses/rooms in Kenya, has a concrete floor and corrugated metal sides and roof. There were two windows cut into the metal and wooden beams running across the ceiling to hold up the roof. There was a slight gap between the roof and the walls and the walls and the floor. To clean the room, we first had to take out all the stuff that was in there. (I was playing with the kids for this part of the process.) We then had to use brooms to sweep all the dirt off the walls and the ceiling beams onto the concrete floor. Then, we swept all the dirt and debris out of the room- there was a ton of dust, dirt, trash, etc. that had to swept out. Next, one of the Kenyans handed me a hose and asked me to start washing off the floor. I was surprised and, at first, this made no sense to me. I stood there bewildered as water started coming out of the hose and turned the room into a flooded, muddy mess...but the Kenyan guys knew how to take the flooded mess and push it out the door with the brooms...it was an amazing process. I kept thinking about how much we could have done with a power washer! (The hose was quite weak/narrow and only a relatively slow stream of water came out it.) After we washed the floor and got all the mud mess out the door, I mopped the floor with a bucket of "clean" (relatively) water and a mop. I have to say that after the entire process was done, the room really looked good and was, as HGTV would say, move-in ready!! :)

Sunday:
We went to church at Kawangware with the team. :) It was fun to be part of the Kawangware community and to see the teachers from the school in another context. The people were SO welcoming and God's presence was definitely in that church. The people, who are quite poor, even gave us all water bottles half-way through the service. Talk about a humbling experience! I felt blessed, honored, and loved by the people. (I just pray I can be as much of a blessing to them as they constantly are to me.) After the service, we were invited into the pastor's office for a pop and snacks (bread and fruit)- which is a very cultural thing here that they do whenever they have visitors. It was so nice of them people. After our snack, I got to show everyone around my school, which was very fun for me. :) God was looking out for us because most of the classroom doors were locked, but mine was wide open so I could show them what my classroom looks like (a dirt floor, some benches, a chalkboard, a window with some broken glass, etc- but I LOVE it!). After we walked around the school grounds, we went to an outdoor market and ate lunch. By the time we got home, it was nearly 6 and I prepared some lesson plans and played bangagrams with Vickie...then I sat down to write this blog, finally! :)

One thing that God's been teaching me lately is to really focus on living like that verse in Colossians says about doing whatever you do with all your heart, as if working for The Lord and not for men. (not sure the exact phrasing, but that's close.) It's easy to get frustrated at school when the teachers don't do things like I'm used to, or when the food is different, or when I can't pronounce a kid's name...but I am praying that God will give me patience and a heart that is open to do EVERYTHING with ALL my heart, because it's not me, or the other teachers, or even the kids that I'm doing this for- it's all for God and to bring glory to his name!! (Of course, by doing this for God, I'm giving love to the kids, too- but I just need to keep the perspective that God makes this possible, and when I letting him work through me to show his love to the students, then I won't get so frustrated with the little cultural things that come up each day.) Also, I've been praying that I would be "fully present" when I'm at the school. My prayer to be "fully present" is one I pray often in different parts of my life- I am praying that while I work with ALL my heart, my heart won't be tempted to wander to back home or to think about things outside of the moment I'm living. Of course, I care about and want to know about everything that's happening at home...but I'm praying that while I'm at school, I can be there with 100% of myself and that I'm can give 100% of myself to the kids as I work for The Lord, and not for men. I am so blessed with this opportunity, and so grateful that God is using me to be a blessing to the kids. I can't do anything less than give this all my heart for the next few weeks!!! :)

Love,
Ashley