I had a blog post all ready to go then realized I didn’t have any photos included…shame on me! Here’s our day with photos!
At the beginning of the day the students gathered for assembly, uniform inspection and instructions/rules for the term.
While Chuck met with Stella, Nice View’s head mistress, I spoke to all the classes to encourage, motivate and hand out stickers to everyone! I told them it was a sticker to let them know how happy I was to have them in school and see their beautiful faces. Chuck also spoke with the Class 8 students to encourage them and hang up a world map in their classroom. The stickers I handed out were part of a care package we received so I also organized those items.
these were given to Stella to use as incentive gifts, awards etc. Chuck said she was like a kid at Christmas looking through all the items!
However, I kept a few items in my desk drawer to use as gifts too…maybe when I see a student doing a good deed without being told, hmmm what do you think?
These young boys were instructed to bring a large bucket of water to the kitchen…good sign of team work! In the first photo they are all spitting on their hands to get a good grip!
Throughout the day we had secondary school (high school) students stop by – these were students who graduated from Nice View and had been helped with school fees and are also being helped with secondary school fees. Elizabeth (not her real name) stopped by and we asked her why she had done so poorly the last term, we can’t help if we don’t know what’s going on. She said last term her brother was trying to go to school but had no fees so she was stressing about that. Another student, Karen (again not her real name), after we asked her the same question told us her uncles were abusing her. After much conversation we found out her uncles were trying to take away her mothers shamba (garden/farm). The abuse was emotional because she said “they hate us and don’t want me to get an education”. Thankfully her mother wants her to attend school but that stress was affecting her studies. Please pray for our secondary students and the stresses they are encountering.
Then at the end of the day it was off to Mercy to give them a few supplies…ink pens left by our visitors, notebooks we brought from the US and a few toys we had on the shelves at Nice View. No matter where you turn though it seems there are always needs…Mercy has no electricity so they wanted torches (flashlights) to study at night but even with the torch they need a place to study. Right now they are studying in their beds before it gets dark so they would like a table and mosquito nets are needed for all the beds and that doesn’t even touch on the food situation or more pointedly the lack of food. Gideon did give us a bag of maize flour to take to them, thanks brother!
One of the kids had written this on the back of Annastacia’s door, she’s the house mum.
Then we had a discussion/pep talk with the Class 8 students at Mercy. Here they are in Annastacia’s room (note the mosquito net with holes and the other bed without a net).
Well that sums up the first day of school, and I mean “sums up” because there are many details not included otherwise this would be a few pages long.
Lord may You give us Your wisdom on how to handle situations as they arise, help us to show Your love to each and every child you put in our path and as it says in Psalm –
You give me your shield of victory,
and your right hand sustains me;
you stoop down to make me great.
Thank You Lord for sustaining me each and every day. My thanks also to all who are helping this ministry for our children in Kenya.