Hello friends and family! Day two of our five day adventure at TOAST has ended and I (Mandy) am the guest blogger for today. The students sent us off in the van with smiles and the simple phrase "tomorrow" which then led to Cregan breaking out in the Sound of Music version of "Tomorrow." Although the students didn't understand they laughed and waved anyway. This happy and carefree attitude is shared by all the students. Many of us commented last night while sharing the highs and lows of the day that the students exude love. They run up to us fighting to hold a hand or in some cases multiple younger students will grasp a finger. You cannot help but hug, pick up, or hold these children.
Today started out with everyone making it to breakfast on time. In fact, Joe was up an hour early (after the front desk attendant gave him the wrong time). Once at the school we broke up into the same three age groups as yesterday. Tommy, Zazie, Jess, and Seth worked with the younger students who were all around 4 years old. Cregan, Amber, Jess, and Bianca taught the middle age group. Max, Joe, Jenna, and myself taught the oldest group which ranged in age from 10 to 12 years old. After teaching, reading, and playing ESL games, each group then read a Bible Story and made a corresponding arts and craft. So far the arts and craft has been the biggest hit. Yesterday's Bible Story was Noah's Ark so the students made animal masks of their favorite animal. Several of the students in our group started drawing cobras however the cobras became pretty original once the students noticed the feathers we brought along for the craft. Today the Bible Study was Jesus Feeds the 5000. We made necklaces out of clay. The students were able to paint and decorate the necklace with whatever they wished. The common pendants had a hearts, cross, or ichythus fish.
Tommy and his skit crew - Zazie, Seth, Bianca, and Amber - performed a simple play to demonstrate that Christ's love is free.
The students left the facility (which by the way is located in an old stable) to eat lunch while we cleaned up, prepared for the afternoon session, and ate our own lunch. We walked to the nearby soccer (I mean football) field for the games. We played footbal, duck duck hen (the students liked this better than the goose version), whiffleball, and a Uganda game called something that I can't pronounce much less spell but it means "shake your bones." The students seemed to get a particular laugh from watching both Seth and Zazie shake.
As the whiffleball and soccer game continued Jenna, Zazie, Lori, and I ended up sitting with some of the older students. They entertained us with songs we all knew like "Swing Low" and "This Little Light of Mine" then taught us some of new songs as well. The girls then went on the teach us some Lugandan words (the common language spoken here). I think they mainly enjoyed laughing at us as we butchered the words.
We're all looking forward to Day 3!
The Chronicles of the Sr. High Youth Team of Redeemer Presbyterian Church NYC on their trip to TAOST school of Jinja, Uganda, in conjunction with Fount of Mercy.
No comments:
Post a Comment