slowly slowly

Well, Andrea and I just finished up our first week teaching in Budumbuli, a very poor village in Southern Uganda. Contrary to popular belief (maybe), we are not working in an orphanage. We are out in the village for most of the day but we spend about 2 and a half hours teaching a group of kids math, english, and bible. I'm covering the latter two. Some of these kids are orphans, others are just very poor or their parents are not in the picture for some reason. We also do a morning of garden work with one of the widows in order to get some experience serving with them. I've been teaching the kids how to spell their colors and about sentence structure. It's kind of weird teaching them about english through a translator! It's cool though because what they learn is not necessarily the point as much as me loving them because God loves them. There are about fifteen kids who come regularly, often dressed in the same things we saw them in the day before. They are all very eager to learn and they think we're fun "teachas". By the way, the way my name is pronounced is how they say "dinner" here, so I always have to clarify and tell them my name is not "dinner". ;)

Continually God is reinforcing this idea of step by step and "slowly slowly", which is what they say to kids here when they want them to slow down so they don't hurt themselves. I often go too fast in the things I want to learn from God, and I think sometimes I try to learn too much at once. God wants to walk step by step...mpola mpola (slowly slowly), so, as I watch these kids learn these basic things and how they are learning step by step how to read and write, so am I learning more about how to LIVE life. :)

Before we started teaching, I had some intense feelings of trepidation about it because, let's face it, I'm not going to school to be a teacher and don't know the first thing about teaching kids how to write or anything. The thing God kept telling me through all that is "that's not the point." It's not about me, and it took only one day with the kids to remind me of that fact. :)

They love hearing bible stories and seeing them on the flannelgraph and I love telling them! I think that's been one of my favorite parts, seeing their faces light up at the pictures because usually they don't have them. Pray God will be my strength because even half a day in the village is tiring. More soon!