Hello dear friends and family,
Well, we are suddenly finding ourselves finishing the third week of term 3. The time has flown by. Sorry for such a long time since my last update.
A couple highlights of term 2: Second term I took the senior girls for Sunday School. That's ages 10 to 15. This involved friendship building activities (with the focus being God needs to be first in those friendships), chalk drawing activities which has shown them how they can share the gospel with others (Elva Hurst: Chalk Talk, thanks Mom and Dad for the Christmas gift), and hard conversations. John Louden, who has been taking the senior boys, had to be away for a weekend so I took all 35 seniors. We watched Ray Comfort's video "180" which compares abortion to the Holocaust. Ray Comfort has conversations with people on the street convicting them of Biblical truths without getting into shouting matches with them on this hot button topic. He is calm the whole time not letting their differing views goad him into arguing.
One of the grade 1 girls professed to be saved at the end of term 2! I am quite excited about this but will be even more excited to see if true fruit comes from this profession. This term has brought it up as an event that happened last term, so she is still holding to her salvation over being home and coming back to school. Please pray for her and the others who professed in term 1. They are all kind hearted girls naturally, so it will be good to see how they all stand for God as they get older.
Over the term break, I spent the majority of the time at Chavuma Mission Hospital. Thankfully, I was not a patient there. Janette and Margie Young (sisters teaching here at Sakeji) grew up as missionary's kids in Chavuma so most often return there for the holidays. I tagged along this time to get off station and see another part of Zambia. I also visited Dr. Ros (from the UK) at Chitokoloki Mission Hospital for a week. I found out I had ringworm while there so I was glad to be in a place where I could readily access medication for that. Thankfully, it's only called "worm" because of the shape the fungal infection leaves on your skin. It has cleared up now, and as I had some medicinal cream left, I gave it to Pam Ronald (the nurse at Sakeji).
The most exciting thing I did over the break was help at the girl's camp in Chavuma. It was such a blessing to work alongside the local women as they served God. Here is a link to a video I created of some of the fun we had: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYS0hsHwVMs (the videos were captured on my phone so if you watch it on a computer it will be quite fuzzy). Despite hard beds and some food poisoning, it was clear to see God working. The gospel went out clearly every day as well as Biblical truths for growing Christians. Our theme was the Holiness of God which led to some very convicting messages and discussions in our cabins. The focus was highly on memorizing God's Word so about 20 girls memorized 40+ verses! Please pray that even now the power of God's Word would continue to impact the campers' lives as well as the counselors'.
Being the third term, my grade 1s are settling in even better. There are still tears and sadness; however, they know what to expect and getting back into routine is a great comfort. Some are having to learn again, they do not get everything done for them and have to be independent. One of my boys who had the toughest time settling in first term has had the easiest time this term. He is also the one with the most questions in Scripture class this term. He is getting to the point where all the truths he has heard from the Bible are beginning to connect, and he wants to know more. Please pray for Luke as he sorts all these things out in his 6 year old mind and for myself and other staff members as we encounter students seeking answers. I would say all my grade 1s have more questions this term, but Luke has the most. He lost his mom around 3 years ago so that is a piece of his puzzle. She was a missionary in the area so from what I know of her, she will be in Heaven and he is trying to piece together what that means and what that means for him.
The kids are already saying how they don't want me to leave, and I feel the same way. I need to dwell on right now and not think of December just yet. Prayer for God's guidance for the next step is much appreciated. Also for the school's next steps as they go into 2023. They need more full time staffing to carry on effectively. There are quite a number of student applicants so God still has the door open for service.
Thank you for your continued prayers and support. May God bless you and keep you as you serve Him.
Your sister in Christ,
Yolanda
Ps. Prayers for continued health: we had a flu bug pass through the school in both term 2 and term 3. It was in the last three weeks of school so thankfully not many teachers were down as we all had much to do with marking, writing exams, and keeping everything running (we had 4 staff members leave right before as well). This term a number of staff went down at various times with achiness, fever, and extreme tiredness. Most were able to take some time off and carry on with the help of God's strength and ibuprofen. I still have a residual cough trying to get rid of all the extra phlegm but am 99.9% better.
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"For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose" ~Romans 8:28~
Here is a picture of my grade 1 students with their puppy friend. We are learning about animals in Science so they were very excited to hang out with Pepsi and the kittens who were born a couple of months ago.
