Touching the future

Sounds dramatic, but that's a little like how it felt as Joelle and I watched our student teachers do their first full week of teaching, having written lesson plans and prepared resources and themselves. We watched more lessons than I can count, and got to know our students a little better each time. We were definitely rooting for their success, and in some cases, even found it! They were still very green and a little nervous, but it was gratifying to see them put things into practice that I know we taught them. A real sign of success came at lunchtime on Friday. A delegation of first graders came to see me to ask that Teacher Elijah not have to move from teaching them! Eljah had spent 6 weeks in their class, observing, then teaching math, English, and phonics. He really fell in love with them, too, and told me one day that he wants to be a first grade teacher. He had been taking extra lessons and even tutoring a couple of them on his own time. It was so special to know that they felt the same way about him, but, sadly, he had to move on to a middle grade next.

One of the things we did every day was give feedback to the students about all the positive and negative things we saw. Their attitudes were so good it made it much easier to tell them the hard things. One of them, Agaba, said, "Only tell me the bad things so I'll know what to work on." He has no idea how demoralizing that could be, so I told him that wasn't an option! At the end of the week when we were telling them how positive we felt about the week, they thanked us for our input in ther week and our feedback, which they knew would make them better teachers. We also gave all the Karanse teachers, who have been supervising our students through this, sodas and bananas at lunch as a thank you. That's how they celebrate really important events, and, as a result, when Agaba came in the dining hall and saw them, he said, "Is it Christmas?" He was joking, but what he meant was - this is a big deal! Gladness, one of the Karanse teachers said, "I knew you would do something like this." I asked what she meant, and she said, "It's the end of their first term and their first teaching week. I knew there would be a celebration." I loved that!

One of my favorite parts of the week was actually getting to be in classes every day. The biggest drawback of my job is missing time with children, so this really helped that. I got to help teach games to 5th graders, lead a group math game in frst grade, go around the classroom observing and looking over shoulders in 3rd, 4th, and 6th grades, listen to a story in second grade; the only grades I missed out on were pre-one and 7th!

I went back to Karanse just for the day Tuesday as we were getting 3 of our students settled in a new school (they had been at a school that didn't work out, then back to Joshua, and now a YWAM primary school, hopefully for the rest of the year) and it was close to Karanse, so I spent the day getting our guys settled in to their new classes. I'm sure they didn't need me, but it was also fun to surprise Abraham with his birthday cake! He thought I had forgotten, so it was more fun than usual!

In for the rest of the weekend, then back out to Karanse on Monday.

For those of you who remember my dad's past bouts with melanoma, he was back in surgery this past week, but we're praying they got it all this time, too. You can join us in that prayer, and that this is the last one!

Power outages, government inspectors and (more) car repairs!

Yes, all in one week! Power outages have been worse than usual, sometimes only a few hours of electricity in a whole 24 hour period. We're told it has to do with lack of water due to not enough rain, but we don't believe that's all there is to it. It does, however, make us pray more fervently for rain! (Even as I wrote that, the power went off briefly!)

On Tuesday, Joanna got word that inspectors from the gov't would be coming to inspect the college the next 2 days. She asked me if I'd go with her and them if we made a trip to Karanse on Thursday. I readily agreed. The rest of the week I was planning to help William in his 4-year old preschool class, and I was also asked to look in on the student teachers here at JTTC for a couple of observations, group work, some work on planning lessons for next week, etc. Along with 2 meetngs and some essays to grade, it sounded like a well-planned week. How long have I been here and should have known better?! The inspectors did indeed come on Wednesday morning, just after I dropped my car off at our base garage for an oil change and general check-up (it had been making some extra noises and seemed rougher than normal) and just as I walked into William's class, Joanna appeared saying, "Can you go to Karanse...now?!" Sure enough, the inspectors wanted to see our students at their training school using our curriculum and talk with them about our course. So, we jumped in the car with the 3 inspectors and took the hour and a half trip to Karanse where I got to surprise our students. They were wonderfully candid and articulate with the inspectors, then pulled me aside to ask me "mentor questions" they hadn't thought it appropriate to ask in front of the inspectors. After much too short a time, we were on our way again.

When we got back to base, I noticed my car was still in the garage, and since it was about 4:30 by then, that didn't seem like a good sign. Sure enough, the mechanic came to my house and asked me to come to the garage. My right front wheel was off, and there were what appeared to be random car parts lying around on the garage floor. One of the mechanics picked up a piece and sort of waved it around. I said, "OK. What is that, what does it do, where should it be?" It turned out my shocks were badly worn, something about a gearbox, rotors, alignment; anyway, 3 days and about $500 later, I got my car back. Thankfully, I get paid milage/maintenance for the use of my car, since I drive it on mentor trips to and from Karanse twice a month. I didn't have all of that on hand, but I know it's coming, so I can pay myself back over the next few weeks.

This coming week the plan is for the students to teach all week in the classes they have been observing, and for us mentors to watch them. I am looking forward to that, as it's our first real look at the progress of them after all this time. More on that next time!