Would You Rather

On Wednesday I welcomed my students to their new classroom (we have a year round school system). I showed them around the classroom, explained the rules and behaviour system, showed them their desk and toured the campus. Since Kindergarten and First grade are on the other side of the school campus, we had to make sure they knew were the bathrooms were and so forth. Over break we made a big switcheroo. The second grade classroom was moved into the fifth grade, the fifth grade was moved to a spare classroom, and all our stuff was shifted. This way second grade would have more space for the age of the students.  The change threw students off the first day of school.

The first few days I try to get to know my students a bit. They usually tire quickly and need more breaks. So after working real hard on some phonics and writing assignments we took a break and did a “getting to know you” activity.

I took them to the back of the room and had them stand in the middle. I explained the rules of the game Would You Rather. The teachers had played this game the day before when we met together, so I thought it might be interesting to see how my second graders would respond to similar questions. I told them that they should move to the side that they would rather do/be, talk to the other people on that side, and then we would share.

The first question was: Would you rather have the ability to fly or to be invisible? They separated and began to talk. That was the fun part! I love hearing kids share with each other. When I was teaching Kindergarten this game would have never worked. Little children don’t know how to work together yet, or to discuss or reason as a team. Afterward they shared their answers. The children who would rather fly would like to be high in the air and go real fast. The children who would rather be invisible thought it would be fun to play tag and no one could find you.

Then I asked: Would you rather be really small or really big? Everyone went to the really small side. My favourite answer came from one of my out-of-the-box boys. He said that he wanted to be able to sit on a flies back! Gotta love kids and how their minds work.

My final question was this: Would you rather know about God but not tell anyone or not know about God and tell everyone? This one got them thinking. The majority of the kids moved to the side where they know about him but don’t share him. Four children went to the side where they don’t know about him, but still tell about him.

I asked the one side, “Why would you want to know about him but not tell anyone?”

One little girl said that sometimes people don’t want to hear about God and so they get mad and might even hurt you. Another child said that the Bible tells us to know about God and believe in him. One little boy said that if he knew about God then he could go to heaven.

I then asked the other group, “Why would you want to not know him but still tell people?” They thought about it for a bit and then they said, “God teaches that we should tell others about him.”

Then I began to ask questions. Doesn’t the Bible tell us to know him and make him known? If you don’t know Jesus but yet you are telling people about him, how do you know what you are telling is true? Are you being obedient if you keep the good news to yourself? Would you be leading people astray if you don’t really know what you are telling them?

We talked a little about how we are called to do both. If we know about God we are expected to tell others about him, even if they don’t want to hear, even if we will get hurt or laughed at. We talked a little about Paul and what his life was like.

I then told them that I would rather be in the middle: to know him and make him known to others.

What a wonderful teaching moment God gave me! I am excited to teach my eighteen little ones to go deep into God’s word and to watch their faith and understanding grow.

Bat Lasagna

Bat Lasagna

Today we celebrated my friend Melissa’s 26^th birthday with a fondue party! All 19 friends were asked to bring some item that can either be dipped in a cheese or chocolate fondue. With two AMAZING homemade fondue recipes simmering in crock-pots we gathered around two round tables each with a lazy-susan in the middle. Our stomachs were filled with delicious veggies, breads, fruits, and treats. This was defiantly my favourite party I have had so far! Thanks for giving us a reason to have fun Melissa!

Our table began to have some quite random conversations, which created a great amount of laughter. Of course when one table begins to laugh the other table listens up to see what is going on, but often not at the beginning of conversations. I bet you’ve done this before. So at one point one of the guests said that she remembers her mom only cooking lasagna for her and her siblings when someone had died. When our conversation ceased, a guy from the other table told a story about how he attended a village church and when the service was finished they killed a large amount of bats that had been flying around.

Someone from our table said, “I guess you could make lasagna”. Everyone at our table laughed and so did the other table. After a second I thought about it and realized that we were likely laughing for two different reasons. They were thinking of lasagna made with bat meat and we were thinking that something died so it’s cause to make lasagna.

After explaining why we were laughing we all realized that the idea of bat lasagna was not really that repulsive to any of us, since many of us have actually eaten bat! We laughed again and started telling stories of the challenges of eating bat meat.

Oh… the conversations that arise in Papua New Guinea Funny how our mindsets change with the experiences we have.

The Art of Cleaning Clothes

Yes, there is an art and pending on your “washing” situation it may differ a bit. Here is my experience with washing and drying clothes.

First of, I have to either, make sure I wash my clothes the night before and let them sit in my washer (nope, they don’t mold…cold here at night, mid to low 60’s or so) or wash them when I wake up. Since our washer is “newer” it only takes 45min-1 hour to wash a whole load, oh including the time it takes to fill it with water. Did I mention that the water comes from the river? J Thankfully our washer only shakes our house a little bit so my roommate and I are still able to have a decent conversation…well, if we shut the back door that is.

After the clothes are washed and spun I plunk them into a laundry basket and head to the clothes line behind our house. We share this with our neighbor (since we live in a duplex) so we technically only use two sides.

There is a running joke on the mission field that everyone knows what kind of underwear everyone wears because they are hanging up outside. Though very true, I decided I’d rather keep private as much as I can. I hang some shirts on the smaller part of the line. There are different ways to hang shirts, believe it or not. My roommate hangs them from the shoulders and I hang them from the base upside down.

Always aware that the first sight of rain means a race to pull everything off the line, I make every effort to beat the rain. I shoot for using less clothespins and hang things close together!

I then move to the second shortest line and hang a shirt or skirt on the end and then proceed to hang my undergarments, followed by another shirt or skirt on the end. 

The middle line is where I put the towels, pants, and jackets. That way when the wind blows them they will not hit the near by bushes. The outer lines are used for more shirt, shorts, and skirts.

Finally, if I am brave, I will lift the clothes line up higher, (because…peanut gallery… I had to lower it being a lady of 5feet 1 1/2 inches.) so the clothes can catch the wind. The other day it was brought to my attention that the hole near the crank is for oil. When oil is put inside, it allows the clothes line to spin around more easily. I pick up my basket, my bag of clothes pins, and walk away quietly praying for sun and the rain to stay away for a few hours.

I remember doing laundry in the village. We only brought a few pairs of clothes to begin with and even then we brought clothes that could make a few different outfits. When we were in great need of clothes we would take the dirty ones down to the river. Our village was fortunate enough to have a nice size river running right through it. We would fill one bucket with water from the river and bring it back over to the side. After transferring our clothes to the bucket of water we would then add some soap. With our hands we would stir the clothes in the soapy water and then choose an item to work on. We were taught to take the item to the river (with our skirts tucked into our shorts might I add. Sorry I don't have a picture for you), throw it on the water, and rub it between our hands. We would then get the items completely wet and then ring it out. If it was not “clean” enough we would do the whole process again. If an item was dirtier than the others it would get a scrub on the broken down tree that laid across the river. I quickly learned that scrubbing would wear my clothes down much quicker so determined that my clothes were "slightly" dirty.

After washing all of our clothing and putting them in the second bucket we would either bathe or return to the village. A clothes line had been assembled for us beside our village house where we hung our clothes. Since it hardly rained the whole five weeks in the village we were fortunate to have dry clothes by the end of the day.

That was the process we went through in the village (note: every village is different).

Hanging up clothes is an art, while driers are a luxury.

Courageous

I watched the movie Courageous tonight with my roommate. Of course, I cried. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. Afterwards my roommate and I were talking about our dads and how thankful we are to have them in our lives. They took the challenge and have continued to live their lives to bring glory to God. I can only hope that men of all ages will stand up, take charge of their family, and lead them the way that Lord desires. Not just because of a movie but because it’s the right thing and the only thing to do. The harder you work to build godly children the more likely they will grow up to be godly men and women, leaders of the next generation, godly moms and dads and spouses. I promise I’ll do my part as I teach them in school, as I am an aunt and an honorary aunt. Let’s be courageous together.