Wednesday night's bible study at Nigel and Peggy's place: from my left - Peggy's knees, John, Miriam, Shirley, Nigel, Grant, Caleb, Nick, Aaron, Lorna, Marg and Les. 
On Thursday morning I had my first "Bible in Schools" lesson at the Waimataitai school. Bible in Schools has been running for 35 years in Timaru, where once a week a Christian volunteer goes to his/her assigned school and presents a bible story to the primary aged children. I will be doing a regular slot here every Thursday at 9 am. It was sad to note that after I had finished telling the story of the baby who was found in the Nile river by the Pharoah's daugher, the kids could not attach a name to the baby - some made random guesses, but they have almost zero biblical literacy. This is the result of the government's decision to remove any sort of religious instruction from the schools many years ago - the grandchildren of these kids were the last ones to have bible teaching as a norm in school! Anyway, the lesson itself was fun. I have about 23 kids aged 8 or 9 who listen well and respond enthusiastically. Nick had a Timaru Ministers' Fraternal thingie at lunchtime, meeting with the various ministers in and around Timaru. That was followed shortly by his assembly-taking at the Timaru Christian School where he spoke about natural catastrophes and God's involvement, plans and goodness even when we don't understand His ways. Then we went shopping! In the evening Nick had a deacons and elders meeting, so it was really a busy day all around.
On Thursday morning I had my first "Bible in Schools" lesson at the Waimataitai school. Bible in Schools has been running for 35 years in Timaru, where once a week a Christian volunteer goes to his/her assigned school and presents a bible story to the primary aged children. I will be doing a regular slot here every Thursday at 9 am. It was sad to note that after I had finished telling the story of the baby who was found in the Nile river by the Pharoah's daugher, the kids could not attach a name to the baby - some made random guesses, but they have almost zero biblical literacy. This is the result of the government's decision to remove any sort of religious instruction from the schools many years ago - the grandchildren of these kids were the last ones to have bible teaching as a norm in school! Anyway, the lesson itself was fun. I have about 23 kids aged 8 or 9 who listen well and respond enthusiastically. Nick had a Timaru Ministers' Fraternal thingie at lunchtime, meeting with the various ministers in and around Timaru. That was followed shortly by his assembly-taking at the Timaru Christian School where he spoke about natural catastrophes and God's involvement, plans and goodness even when we don't understand His ways. Then we went shopping! In the evening Nick had a deacons and elders meeting, so it was really a busy day all around.Today was no less busy. We tried to get through as much of our schoolwork as possible before 11 am at which time Rene came to fetch us so Nick and I could photograph some of the projects that Timaru Bluestone has undertaken, for their website redesign. 
Halfway through we stopped for lunch at Rene's house, then rushed off to watch Hannah and several of the other kids we have met swim in a gala. Caleb and Aaron met up with Caleb, Josh and Jayden - I was so impressed with Josh walking right alongside Caleb while he swam, shouting encouragement. All "our kids" did really well. 
(Hail the conquering hero! Josh, Caleb, Caleb, Aaron and Jadyen.) That done, we completed the photography and quickly dumped the photos onto the laptop which we took to Kurt and Shirley's place - Nick visited with Kurt while I edited our takes. Then had to drop those off at Bluestone (right on the way home) and haretail it home so Nick could wait for the courier to deliver his new TradeMe guitar (a necessary item on our list now, otherwise he'll never get it to replace the one he had to give up before we left the island). Miriam took Caleb and Aaron to a park with her boys and Max while we waited, which was great for them. For tea we were at Grant and Petru's place where we were amazed at their teamwork in the kitchen - they produced an awesome pork roast with accompanying veggies and goodies. The boys were swallowed up amongst Erin-Marie, Danica, Jayden and Dinae and we barely saw them all evening, leaving us grown-ups to chat about God and life and coffee and everything in between. 
Halfway through we stopped for lunch at Rene's house, then rushed off to watch Hannah and several of the other kids we have met swim in a gala. Caleb and Aaron met up with Caleb, Josh and Jayden - I was so impressed with Josh walking right alongside Caleb while he swam, shouting encouragement. All "our kids" did really well. (Hail the conquering hero! Josh, Caleb, Caleb, Aaron and Jadyen.) That done, we completed the photography and quickly dumped the photos onto the laptop which we took to Kurt and Shirley's place - Nick visited with Kurt while I edited our takes. Then had to drop those off at Bluestone (right on the way home) and haretail it home so Nick could wait for the courier to deliver his new TradeMe guitar (a necessary item on our list now, otherwise he'll never get it to replace the one he had to give up before we left the island). Miriam took Caleb and Aaron to a park with her boys and Max while we waited, which was great for them. For tea we were at Grant and Petru's place where we were amazed at their teamwork in the kitchen - they produced an awesome pork roast with accompanying veggies and goodies. The boys were swallowed up amongst Erin-Marie, Danica, Jayden and Dinae and we barely saw them all evening, leaving us grown-ups to chat about God and life and coffee and everything in between. 
1 comment:
So did you get to taste our pork before even visiting us? :-)
We sent some home with them at the end of January - so it's possible.
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