Countdown to the finish line!

It's hard to believe there is only a week of school left. I'm not ready for it to end. There's so much more I want to teach! One of my future goals is to have year-round school, with frequent breaks, rather than one long summer break. The students would retain more that way.

Today we went to the park, as is our custom each Wednesday, weather permitting. At the school itself, there is very little room outside for active play, so the park fills a real need. We also have the goal to teach the students how to act on these short weekly field trips, so they will know how to behave on longer ones.

The students, especially the boys fight a lot. Most of them come from very rough barrios, and have parents who don't really know how to communicate with them.

Emotionally they are very childish, and react to any insult or perceived insult with violence. This is something that will change in time. It is difficult, because when you have two seven year olds fighting, they probably aren't going to do any permanent damage, but teenagers who fight over the same things may actually harm each other, because of their nearly adult size and strength.

Playing is one thing we really like to see the kids doing. I admit, we have a hidden agenda; learning. We try to make learning fun, rather than tedious and boring. We do have to teach them how to play. They tend to be like little children when things don't go their way, pouting, or getting angry when they lose. We have a lot of 12-14 year olds that are more like 7 year olds emotionally.

The work team that was here from Baltimore left us some little wooden cubes that open up and show the gospel in pictures. This week we are taking about fifteen minutes at the end of each day--our normal time for Bible study--and devoting it to teaching them how to use the cubes. Each student gets to have one of their own, as soon as they are able to explain the pictures. They should be ready to do that by Tuesday.

Wednesday will be a clean-up day, where we will have the students help us put all our materials in proper order. Thursday will be our end of the year party, and the last day of school. We expect to have a couple of summer activities, one in July, then a short camp in August.

During the summer Svetlana and I will be working on a variety of things, from curriculum development, to home visits. We'll be printing up a lot of our own materials. At least that's the plan. :)

Please pray for us and these children. Only through Jesus can these little lives be truly touched.