Hello dear friends and family,
Thank you for your continued interest, support, and most of all, prayers as I serve here at Sakeji. As many of you have heard, God opened the door to stay another term.
Some highlights since my last post:
In third term 2022, one of our older students was sent home because of decisions made. This affected one of my students as well as he is a younger sibling. Even now the boys in my grade 2 class miss him.
I taught grade 2/3 in first term 2023 since that teacher went on furlough until April. This was difficult as I had two grades to teach and some students who really push the boundaries. God was gracious and gave me wisdom and patience each day.
One of my grade 2s who comes from a strong Christian family and knows a lot of Bible knowledge, put his trust into that knowledge. He accepted Jesus as his Savior in March! He was very excited to share his decision with all the teachers. He continues to show fruit this term. I pray he will continue to grow in his new faith.
A girl who made a profession of faith last year made another one in first term. Please pray that she will be assured of her salvation. She is asking good questions about assurance this term.
I got to go home over the Christmas break and have some long awaited visits with family and friends. While home I attended New Years Revolutions which had their first retreat since they had to shut down for Covid. It was so nice to see so many people I hadn't seen in ages! I was humbled to be interviewed for one of the missionary minutes and share how God has been working through me. I also got to celebrate my nephew's first birthday and my 30th!
I got to serve at the Scripture Union camp in April over the Easter weekend. There was clear gospel and learning how to grow in our relationship with God from Ephesians, John and Romans. Here is a video I put together of our time together.
Term 2:
With all teachers returned, we are able to have a teacher for each grade in lower school. I am with the grade 2s who I taught all last year. For the most part we no longer share a classroom with the grade 3s. I have been able to set up my own classroom. It has been so nice to have my own space which I can decorate and set up. We have a mini library space with lots of fun books, a word table where they can write down all the new words they discover, and a space for independent learning activities. I am discovering what teaching tools and behaviour strategies work for me and my students.
Since I have had these kids since January 2022, I used moving into a new space to reinforce the expectations. I was on top of them each time they didn't meet expectations and rewarded those who did. The first couple of weeks there were a lot of marks on their behaviour chart as they worked to remember the rules. So far this week we have less marks and I am seeing better remembering of what is expected of them.
I am responsible for junior Sunday School this term which means I have 32 kids gr 1-4 every other Sunday. Last time I had them in third term 2022 we talked about the fruit of the Spirit. The first week we did a Jeopardy game to review some of the things we learned. It's a fun way to review lessons they've learned. Somebody passed on the template to me years ago and I'm willing to share so let me know if a Jeopardy template would be useful to you. This term we are covering the Armor of God.
God really intervened last week as I felt the Devil trying to frustrate me. I spent the hour before Sunday School finalizing my slideshow with all the resources I would need for that lesson, and when I got up to the hall my slideshow was completely blank! I could only recover the work I had done on Saturday. Thankfully, I was able to quickly find the links to the resources I needed on other tabs in my computer. As I started my lesson, I felt frazzled. I confessed to the kids I was feeling frustrated with my computer. We stopped right then, and I prayed for God's help as it was through Him and for Him that I was speaking to the children. God granted a smooth lesson and great participation from the children as we learned about the Belt of Truth, our stabilizer in our lives. God's word proved true again. "Ask, and it will be given to you: seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you" Matthew 7:7.
Ruthie and I are taking the senior girls for Rally every other Saturday. First week we did some ice breakers. They literally had to break a shirt out of the ice and race against each other to see which team got the shirt on first (thanks New Years Revolution for the idea). They had lots of fun! Our project this term is making latch hook rugs. The girls are completing their designs this week, and Ruthie and I are going to go through the craft container to see what colours of wool we can find. I did this craft a few times when I was a teenager. I'm excited to get into it again with them!
Please pray with me:
- that God would reveal where He wants me long term. I would love to continue on here. It feels very much like home.
- wisdom as I continue with grade 2. Ch especially gets overwhelmed when he thinks the work is too much. He will cry and not even try. When he comes back at it another time, he sits down and gets the work done with confidence.
- for God to speak through me in every interaction: in the classroom, during Sunday School, on the playground, doing dishes, monitoring the tables being set for the morning, etc.
- for the staff and those helping as they plan for the 100th anniversary of the school in 2025.
- the grade 3 teacher, Margie, as she now has the students who like to test the boundaries.
