Another great day with the kids in Sunday School. Raelee hasn’t been so happy to have to leave babies and come to the older kids class but she gets plenty of baby-holding time before and after and even though she hates leaving them, she does like to be included in the lessons. She especially likes to see what kind of experiments I do to help teach, she is always as surprised as the rest of the kids. We had three today that recited the verse we have been talking about for a couple of months. Others know it but are too shy to say it in front of a group, they are working up to it. We are in prayer for next Sunday, we expect anywhere from 300-500 kids will come and our regular class isn’t too happy about it. We are working on accepting the kids even though we know they are just coming because they think they will receive something. I talked to them about the importance of having their own relationship with Jesus and committing their lives to living according to His Word and He says He will take care of the rest. One day all who have heard about Jesus (even if only on Easter and Christmas) will have to stand before God with no excuse. They can’t say they never knew about His Son and it is very important for us to pray for those. We had special prayer before we parted today, praying for the kids that will come. That they will see something different here and want to come back and learn more. That the kids that come just to get something out of it will in fact get more than what they were expecting! Pray for me for next week that I may be able to handle that many kids and have the patience, wisdom and God’s guidance in what to say and how to say it. It is very challenging to teach children from another culture using examples that they can relate to. I have the internet, bible studies for children to use along with the bible but it is all geared towards American children so there are many I can’t use at all, and many that I have to translate in a way they can relate. The longer we are here and I learn more about the culture, it seems a little easier all the time to explain things in terms they can understand. (Besides being a vegetable thief! That is their main go to evidence of a bad person!) Today we spoke about self-control and at the end I asked for examples of times they have shown self-control. The question wasn’t quite understood as I got answers of abusing someone, fighting, hitting. We finally have more girls coming, at first they thought it was just for the boys and feared coming. They are still pretty quiet during class but this morning one very quiet little girl who always seems to be paying close attention to me gave her answer to my question, her eyes sliding to the side. “Pinching someone. Pinching them hard”! It made me laugh because it seemed to me she might have been the pinch-er in that situation! I really do love these kids!
Christian’s namesake came to Sunday School with his older brother (who is 4 or 5). The baby is now a few months old, and was quite beautiful in his yellow frilly dress with frilly rubber pants over a cloth diaper. Confused? Join the club! His mama was so proud of her pretty baby and it caused me to question if he is a he and not a she. I checked with one of Jenifer’s girls and she verified that is a boy, even though there was a very big deal made when the father told everyone he was named after Christian! I told her it confuses me when they are dressed in dresses and I’m afraid she might have told the mama what I said, she wasn’t as friendly when she left. I would never intentionally insult someone’s baby, it is just confusing! I had just told my mother-in-law that babies here don’t wear diapers. Mostly they don’t and definitely never disposable (in rural areas anyway). For some reason they have a definite aversion to disposable for reasons of health to their babies. A few will have one or two clo
the diapers that they will use if they have something special to go to (or maybe just if it came with a frilly yellow dress 🙂 Most of the time babies don’t have any bottoms on, up to the age of 3-4. That means no pants whatsoever. The smaller ones may or may not wear a shirt and most times if they do it doesn’t fall much below their belly button. You have to be careful where your hand is when holding them! It’s easier than having to clean them up, having to hand wash cloth diapers. And while they are still this small they keep them pretty swaddled. That’s my best guess anyway!
His Grace For The Journey 