This morning we went to Good Shepherd church again in town. Because Dee and Dave have their friends visiting from the States, they decided to go to Bethel. So we caught a ride with the Birners. Church was very nice again today. Neither of us had to play piano last minute or anything because the hymnsoft program was working today. There was communion today as well. It was just awesome to see that even though we’re thousands of miles away from “home”, we still have family here—communing with our African brothers and sisters in Christ was just so wonderful! We spent some time visiting after church. Instead of Bible study, the ladies had a business meetings instead, so we decided to catch a ride with Pastor Birner to the Arcade Mall—he was going to buy some dog food while he was waiting for Mrs. Birner to finish her meeting. Every Sunday, some of the same vendors that set up at that Dutch Reform market we went to on our first day, set up in the parking lot of the Arcades. We had about 20 minutes to browse while Pastor Birner was shopping. We were on a mission! And mission accomplished! We got some incredible things (for some pretty decent prices I think) in 20 minutes. Our bartering skills were at the top of our game today, and we weren’t messing around. We are so happy with our purchases! I am already so excited to put them in my future apartment/house. J I could seriously spend so much money on curios and paintings though. Although I do have to remember that I still do have some at home in America that I can dig out too, so I can’t go too crazy.
After church we came home and relaxed for a while and had a nice chat. We had made a plan to meet up with the Birners again in the afternoon to go swimming like we did last week. It’s my new favorite way to spend Sunday afternoon! One the way out to AIS we retraced some of Erika’s footsteps from her infamous marathon last week. We were trying to figure out where and how she got lost. I couldn’t believe just how far she had run. Seeing where she ended up was amazing. She was almost all the way out by AIS, but just didn’t realize it!
After swimming laps, Mrs. Birner took us on a little tour of the campus. It was so, so beautiful! I just pictured how awesome it would be to teach there. The campus is just gorgeous and very large. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take out my camera and take pictures. Maybe another week.
When we got back, Pastor Phiri came over and said there were a couple issues with the schedule we made, so we had to tweak that a bit. He added two children that weren’t on the list originally, and then two of the kids that were on the list needed to be switched from the afternoon to the morning. So we didn’t get our ideal 2:1 student to teacher ratio, but it’ll still work out fine. It’s still a small enough group where I don’t think it will be stressful at all. Erika and I are so much looking forward to the tutoring. Since we’re Elementary/Early Childhood teachers we are excited to be with the kids. And the older kids we’ve met so far have been so sweet and respectful! Plus, it will be a nice laid-back setting right in our courtyard under the blue tents. We are excited for teaching the wives too, but I think we’re a little more nervous for that because it’s out of our comfort zone. We’ve never really had the experience of teaching English to people who really don’t know English at all. Plus, this is the main reason why we are here, so we want to do a good job.
We are getting a little tired of the PB&Js all the time, so for supper we decided to ask Anne if it would be alright to borrow some eggs. Because she’s so sweet, of course she said yes. We made some scrambled eggs with fried onions and a little bit of garlic and tomatoes and cheese, with 2 pieces of toast with some garlic salt on it. It was so delicious! So much better than boring old PB&J. After eating and watching some more Friends, we decided to get our things together for teaching tomorrow. We went through our lesson one more time and got the supplies we’ll need, so I think we’re all set to go. We just have to run over to Dee’s tomorrow to pick up a white board we’ll need for English class.
I’m excited for day 1! We’re had lots of down time, and time to plan and think about what everything is going to be like, but now we’re just antsy to start. I’m still kind of nervous—I just hope the lesson we have planned is not way too difficult or too simple where it’s almost offending. I guess we will have to wait and see. I’m sure the teacher-flexibility mode will come out in full force tomorrow. Please pray that God guides our lessons tomorrow and we remember why we’re here—to teach these ladies and children English and show them God’s love in our relationships to them, not to focus on ourselves.
I FINALLY talked to my dear brothers on Facebook. It was the highlight of my day, and a perfect way to start this next week. I miss them dearly. Found out the good news that Dave is going to the DR to teach preschool for a year next year. So when I get home, we'll have something like 14 days together before he leaves for his Spanish Immersion trip. So happy for him, but sad at the same time. I guess I'll just have to travel some more in the near future to go visit him.
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