May 6 at Indepencen Primary School

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Alright, I officially need to get into a routine of not showering in the morning. I think it’s going to end up being evenings. I woke up again to no water. So I tried to get myself as ready as I could for the morning. Took a walk to the superstore to buy a bottle of water to drink, it’s ridiculously hot today. And then walked over to the school.

I visited Teacher Sharlene’s class. She asked me to come by to teach her children a rhyme or poem with actions that they can perform at the Festival of Arts. She picked 8 children from her class for me to teach, they will be the 8 to perform. I decided that I was going to teach them a camp song that had lots of actions. It’s called ‘King of the Jungle.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with it the words are:

Whose the king of the jungle? Ooga ooga.
Whose the king of the sea? Bubbly, bubbly, bubbly.
Whose the king of the universe?
And whose the King of me?
I’ll tell you J-E-S-U-S is!
He’s the king of me.
He’s the king of the universe,
The jungle and the sea. Bubbly, bubbly, bubbly.

It took me about a half an hour to teach it to them and it was slow going, but it was a lot of fun. They really enjoyed the actions, particularly when I did them, because I had to exaggerate everything I did to try and encourage them to exaggerate their actions, and they found it quite funny. I led the song as a repeat after me for them, and as soon as we got to spelling out Jesus, they all knew exactly who we were talking about. I could hear little voices shouting out, “that’s Jesus.” Only problem is, the 8 in the front of the room kept reversing the ‘e’ and ‘u’. J-E-S-U-S quickly turned into J-U-S-E-S. After a few more practices we got it figured out. Teacher Sharlene asked me to come by again tomorrow morning and work with the 8 who she wants to perform at the festival. I’m looking forward to it.

Independence primary school is an amazing school. It currently has 800 students enrolled and employees 31 teachers. It’s a government run school, that receives no government funding. This lack of funding has not stopped the administration from doing wonderful things with their program. Two years ago they introduced a computer class to the school. They started out with 8 computers that they were able to buy with a donation from someone. They then charged students who wanted to enroll in the course extra so that they could save up money to continue to buy more computers. To date they now have a designated computer room that they have been able to install air-conditioning into, they have 20 computers, and have been able to purchase and use LCD projectors as part of their teaching strategies. Like the computer program, they hope to also implement a music program. To date they have 10 guitars and are hoping that with time they will be able to purchase more so that the program can grow. They are also in need of someone who can play the guitar to teach the children. It’s days like today I wish I would have learned that instrument. I’ve been very inspired by the teachers and administration staff at the school. And I can definitely see God at work throughout their community. What an encouragement to see so many children getting an education.

Later on this afternoon I returned to IPS to sit in on a standard 4 level class to listen to the teacher talk about HIV/AIDS which is a growing problem here. I showed up half an hour early which turned out to be late. Anyway I sat in the back of the classroom the teachers were so welcoming. During the children’s break I found out they wanted me to lead the second part of the discussion as they thought that’s why I was coming. I had to decline as I wasn’t prepared. They laughed, probably at the shock on my face. But it worked out well. I will be heading back again tomorrow for the day to work with the same to classes again!!

Thanks all for reading and for praying. You don’t know how much it means to me that you are upholding my ministry, the ministry of St. Michael’s and the ministry of the community in your prayers.