Gearing Up

The past couple of weeks I have been mainly observing at the DayCare. The older students from the public schools have been on school holiday (vacation), so many of our little ones have been staying home. I have only seen about 34 students at the DayCare. Tomorrow we should be back up to our full 60 students! So I am trying to figure out what my role will be with the teachers/students.

Because of the school holiday, our staff took turns taking a week off. So far I have filled in where the missing teachers would have been. I have helped as an assistant or to give the teachers a break during the day. And I have have spent a lot of time learning the way they do things.

The kids are very adorable. They are starved for positive attention. I cannot count how many times during the day I hear "Teacher, teacher, LOOK!" (Which sounds more like T-Jah, T-Jah, lewk.) The kids rarely use any of the teachers names. The church facilities are great for the DayCare. There are boxes of donated toys stashed in the strangest places. I cant wait until I can pull them all out and figure out what is needed and give the rest away.

My priorities are very different from the other teachers. They want to keep the kids safe and get them home, but little else....Safety is very important, but we could do so much more! So the next few weeks I will be working with the Pastor and Head Teacher to develop a goal and mission statement for the DayCare.

Everything seems to work slowly here in South Africa. Getting a phone, bank account, internet, my bag from the airport....everything is difficult, unorganized or just plain slow. I have a feeling that there will be long process to get this DayCare to be what these kids truly deserve. The teachers have made a great start, I dont want to change it, I want to add to it. I look forward to the challenge of developing lessons, organizing the toys and loving these kids!

Please pray for the theachers and pastor by name as we move towards a more productive working relationship. Pastor Cheryl, Nomalonga (head teacher), Aurelia and Malt. Also pray for the other staff people who help with kitchen work/cleaning/etc: John, Ivan, Faith, Lindiweh, and Joyce. And I thank God for the 2 summer missionaries who have been a great help (Erin and Russell). They really helped smoothe my transition by providing lots of information and helpful hints. Pray for Russell. He is going through the interview process for the Venturer program so that he can come back on a more long term basis.

There are so many things I am hearing/seeing/learning/doing, that Im never quite sure what to type. Now that I have consistent internet access, hopefully I can write several times a week rather than writing a book on the weekends. :-) Please keep emailing me and letting me know what is going on at home!