Summer School

This week was our first full week to run summer school at “My Father’s House”.  We have 15 kids (most days it was 12-15 kids) and we work under a little veranda outside the children’s home.  We are also lucky enough to have 4 high school volunteers who have been a huge help.  We focused on starting to prepare and practice for “Thank you Thursday” which we will be running this week.  We have to prepare an hour long prayer time for the staff and kids at “My Father’s House”.  The kids are really looking forward to it!  Each day has had its ups and downs but teaching summer school has been one of my favorite times so far! 

Monday July 23^rd – Summer school was great today, the group of kids is so vibrant, and they always keep us smiling.  Some of these kids are nonverbal and can’t move much in their chair but their smile can light up a room and you know that they understand and appreciate everything we do with them.  We kept the kids busy with calendar, story, snack, and a craft in the morning. 

We allowed the kids to choose a variety of songs that they will help sing during the prayer time for “Thank you Thursday”.  In the afternoon we watched part of Toy Story 3 with the kids in our summer program and they were excited about it!  We got back to “Sophie’s Place” in the evening and helped feed the kids, it always makes my night when we pull into “Sophie’s” and some of the kids are sitting or standing at the gate waiting for us.  We also got a new roommate, Lindsay, she will be here for 2 weeks.  Lindsay has been here 14 other times, once as a long term volunteer and she’s come on several short term trips, pretty cool! 

Tuesday July 24^th – We worked at “My Father’s House” again and also went shopping to buy tee shirts for the kids and many of the staff.  We decided to have the kids decorate shirts that they could wear for “Thank you Thursday”.  We wrote “Give Thanks” on the shirts and traced the kids’ hands on them and allowed them to decorate, they were so pumped about decorating the shirts J. 

They all seem excited to wear the shirts together on Thursday and keep talking about what we will be doing.  Tuesday night we worked on tying up loose ends to help prepare other volunteers to run summer school while we are gone.  Although it is a struggle organizing 15 kids for summer school with very limited space and resources we’ve really enjoyed our time with this group of kids!!  We ate a late dinner as a medium term family J (Kathryn, Mandy, Charcey, Lindsay, and I).  We’ve had such a fun time together, laughing all night and probably driving the short term group crazy!  It’s so nice to have such a great group of girls that we can talk about our day with and just hang out, amazing what no internet and t.v. does!

Wednesday July 25^th – Today we worked at “My Father’s House again and the kids had a great time finishing up the shirts.  They have started to sing our calendar song pretty independently and a lot of the kids are picking up more on the sign language we’ve used.  We attended “Recollection” with the kids which was a prayer time for the staff that involved singing and reflection.  We watched “Finding Nemo” at the end of the day and the kids were really excited about having popcorn.  We got back to “Sophie’s” in the later evening because our bus took a little longer.  We played with the kids when we got back and then we helped them eat dinner.  We were able to help wake up the baby boys so that they could come sit in their wheelchairs for dinner, which was the cutest thing.  We got a lot of really good pictures hanging out with the kids!

We also had to say our first goodbye, to Deleene, the cook and housekeeper at “Sophie’s”.  From our very first day she welcomed us with a hug and considered us part of her family.  Not only does she cook us amazing meals but she would call us if she hadn’t seen us in awhile because we worked late just to let us know she was thinking of us and missed us.  She is truly one of the most genuinely kind people I’ve ever met and I’ll miss her dearly!  Thank you for all you did for us and for all you do everyday Deleene!    

Having a really hard time accepting that we're almost done :(...love this place and these kids!