Just Love These Kids!

As the new school year began, the Lord allowed me to take up one of my favorite ministries again: that of having a Kid's Club. In this club we learn of God's love for us and others and how we can live by following the truths from His Word. Last year due to my work load, it just wasn't possible for me to have their club, and I heard from our Center teacher that the kids would come on Saturday mornings and wait for me! Talk about making me feel terrible!
This year, I have been able to narrow my ministry focus with Beki helping us, so that I could have time for the kids again. This time I wanted to not only teach them Spiritual truths, but to also be able to help them academically. (Most children in 4th and 5th grade still do not know how to read or do basic math problems.) Because our mission has just produced an excellent Biblically based Reading and Math program for the beginner levels, I wanted to try that program with the kids. At the same time I also wanted to train someone else in teaching children using this method. And God gave me the young man (Yemin) to help...he's one whom we have helped with some schooling and teaching courses in the past, and he was eager to have an opportunity to get some experience. Then I called on my dear friend who IS a teacher to help us get the ball rolling. She came out to Makalondi and did a week with us, planning out our 3 time/week meetings, modeling the teaching method for us, and giving extra instruction to Yemin.
We've just finished our 4th week and even though it's been A LOT of work (I have much more sympathy for all the prep work of first grade teachers now!), we are thoroughly enjoying Club time....the kids And the teachers! We only accepted 10 students on the condition that they would be faithful and that their parents would support us in making sure they came. The rewards are already evident as I see the children learning Bible stories so well that they can tell them to their classmates, putting the lessons from those stories into practice in their behavior and seeing the individual gifts of each child academically coming out with more confidence. The kids just can't wait for class, and when school was out for a holiday this past week, they asked me to hold class for them that afternoon, which we did.
I think that it's evident in the video below, that the children are enjoying themselves. They had studied the story of Ishmael and the lessons we learned were that God always hears them and that we don't make fun of others. We applied that to our families in particular.
Here is what they are reciting (focusing on the sound of "i" in French - which is the "long e" sound for us in English):
Isaac grew. Ishmael laughed, hee hee hee. Sarah said, "That's enough! Leave from here!" But God heard his cries.