This last week was a week full of highs, although all I can do is be aware that it was a high and that we can’t just ride on those, thinking they’ll never be accompanied by lows. You can experience those kinds of things if you’re here for just a few weeks. You can run on adrenaline for that short of a mission trip and ride on all the highs, but for my 8-month assignment, I need more stamina than that.
Still, it was a pretty sweet week. My week started off Monday morning with a miscommunication. What morning doesn’t start that way? No surprises with that anymore. I was told that there was a meeting with the education team, and what I thought the woman had told me was that she wanted me to be there. No, what she thought she had communicated was that she would be in a meeting and wanted me to teach her class for her.
Again, a surprise teaching assignment. Again, nothing new. So I trotted down to the class and did what Uganda has been teaching me the hard way: wing it. And the beautiful thing? It was easy and comfortable.
I remember last term, I had asked the teacher to come and observe that class, to see how school is done in Uganda, before I started teaching. I showed up to observe, and the teacher didn’t show up, so I ended up teaching. I remember that day, being so frustrated that the other teacher didn’t come, and floundering around in the book for something to teach them.
This time, I had already been teaching that class for a term, so I know their level, their personalities, etc. So it wasn’t difficult to pull a few teaching activities out of my hat and just go with the flow.
The rest of the week involved all sorts of things like that. In teaching both that class and another class, I felt like I knew what I was doing. Even if I hadn’t prepared a lesson in advance, I felt confident in the way I was presenting it, and the students understood it well. Time with the youth in drama was going well and I was stepping up in leadership, where I had previously just kind of observed. I finally started a project with them of leading them to write their own play, which had been on the back burner for months. Time spent with the kids was fun and meaningful, whether I was at the children’s home for fun, fellowship, or to work on the puppet show. The puppet show is coming along nicely, and the kids are having a lot of fun, arguing over taking turns to hold the puppets.
Well I’ll finish this post for now, from a combination of my brain being fried, and knowing that if I go on it will be another forever-long post. Omutwe gakooye! (My brain is tired!) So I’ll save more for another post later.
A few prayer requests:
I’m heading to Tanzania for a couple of weeks! Praise God for the chance to go-- I’ll be spending a week at a conference, then enjoying a few days in the unbelievably gorgeous island of Zanzibar!! Pray for safe travel, that the conference will be fruitful in the work I’m doing here, and that the vacation will bring me back here with a renewed spring in my step to finish my last few months here.
Continue to pray for the investment I’m making in these kids spiritually. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in “What are you doing? Are you actually accomplishing anything?” that we lose sight of why we’re here. Pray for focus and relationships that draw others closer to Christ.
Even though I just said it’s not about the things I’m out to accomplish, I am nevertheless in the middle of a few projects-- the puppet show with the younger kids, the play with the older youth, teaching English, and working in the office to prepare the older youth to live self-sustainably. Pray that those things continue to go well!
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