As I stated in my previous blog, we were with the refugees and the testimony kids last week. Let’s discuss the events of the week.
The refugees are a lot to handle. Paying attention is not a strong suit, and hitting/fighting occurs over us. Those events lead to the teachers threatening to hit/hitting the kids with a stick. It really is unfortunate how violent discipline is integrated into these kids at such a young age. In terms of topics, I did a basic numbers, addition, and subtraction lesson. My teammates did lessons on manners, directions, and English through stories and games.
The testimony kids are so much more well behaved. Our host has done a great job with the kids and has told us behavior wasn’t always so good. We have focused on the Bible, discussing topics such as hearing the voice of God, being a child of God, worship, prayer, the Gospel, and a general question and answer session. For the voice of God we made some kids direct other kids through an obstacle course, and for the Gospel we made the kids act the story out. These activities helped for more active learning than just sitting in a classroom. I had one of the older kids guiding me through the obstacle course to practice their English as well.
Another activity the testimony kids really like is soccer. There was a thunderstorm one day and the kids still insisted on playing soccer until it was too dark to see outside. We also played a second game a different day, in which I got hit in the face with the soccer ball and one of my pairs of glasses broke. The glasses are only broken in one spot, so I think the glasses are fixable, but I guess we will see because I haven’t tried to fix the pair yet. What’s hilarious is only being able to see shapes and colors did not negatively impact my play on the field at all. There’s no way for me to pick up good foot-eye coordination so quickly, so I have just been focusing on defense by getting in the way. I guess zero divided by any number is still zero.
I do have a second pair of glasses and a lot of contacts, so I will see you next time.
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