Hello friends!
Let me jump back to where I left off…last Wednesday, I got to teach again! This time just Sandra and I went to the Shalom Baptist school, which was in the same building as Pastor Christian’s church that John, Sarah, and I had attended the Sunday before. It had been raining the whole morning so it was a bit muddy out. Luckily, this school is in a building with a tin roof so we stayed dry. I really enjoyed teaching at Shalom! We brought in our clocks again, and had kids pulled over to the side for small group instruction on telling time. Sandra and I each took 2 clocks and each had a Ghanaian interpreter with us to help. The guy that I taught with (wish I could remember his name, but it was really long and complicated!) was actually a teacher at the school, and he ended up doing most of the teaching. He was so good at it! He had some really good ways of teaching the abstract concept. I just sat there and watched, impressed…I hope to use some of the stuff I learned from him someday! This Ghanaian teacher and I taught 4 different groups of kids probably ages 5-10 in about 1 ½ hours. Then I got to teach my own group with the other interpreter cuz the teacher I was working with had to go help with lunch duty. It was really neat because I got to use the language and tactics I had just observed to teach it to a different group…and they were really getting it! Yay J They seemed to understand me better when I used that vocabulary.
Around 12:30, the van came to pick us up. John, Nick, Keith, and Pastor Christian had been out doing some tests on the land and viewing the flooding condition at the current children’s home. When we got in the van, John had been crying and said we were gathering the team together back at the hotel to pray for the children. When they were at the home, there had been a very dark presence there. Trash was being dumped literally in the street leading to the home, and then they saw a crazy man (most likely demon-possessed) right outside the gate of the home screaming at them. John really felt the Holy Spirit telling him to gather and pray for the children, and laid Psalm 70 on his heart to pray for the situation as well.
Back at our hotel, we gathered as a team and prayed together before eating our lunch. It was one of the most powerful experiences of prayer I think I’ve ever experienced. It wasn’t that I felt anything different, but it was more that I realized I don’t have to feel it for it to be real. Instead of just being an emotional experience, I really felt the power of God through His truth and His presence that is always there. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain, but it was really good. Everyone just prayed out what the Spirit laid on their heart, and we also spoke out names of God, because there is so much power in his name alone! We prayed protection over the children and it was really a big realization for me that this battle is not against flesh and blood! It’s so easy in America to get distracted and forget what we’re really fighting against because it is not nearly so obvious. But we have all the power through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen! Hallelujah. J
Wednesday afternoon, a few of us went back to the Children’s Home. Bob, one of our eMi staff, was initially planning on doing his illusion show/gospel message, but he had another meeting come up, so we went instead to just sing songs with the kids, with me leading. J It was so encouraging to sing songs about Jesus with them and to see the hope they can have within even though they are in such a seemingly hopeless situation! I think this moment was especially powerful for me after we had prayed so much for the children earlier that day, and just for their protection physically as well as spiritually! We also read them the story about Jesus calming the sea and bringing peace in the Jesus Storybook Bible. It was neat, because we just passed the book down the line and each read a page.
When we went to leave the children’s home, Constancia, one of the 12 year old girls that I had met the first day, came and brought me a letter. I read it as we were leaving the home. It’s pretty heavy stuff. It’s 2 pages long! The first page is about how much she loves me, and about her love for Jesus as well. (which is awesome!) The second page is basically a list of things she needs or wants, such as spectacles, a backpack, shoes for school, etc. It is so hard because the kids are supposed to be learning to not ask for things, but to just be happy with what they have, but you know they want so much more. One of the things she really wants is a family. It is so hard knowing that I can’t provide her with this…but I can pray for her and I know that Jesus is ultimately the only one who can satisfy. It’s still really sad and hard though.
Mama Rejoice (Pastor Christian’s wife) cooked us chicken Wednesday night. It was pretty good, and I tried to not be as picky about eating meat off the bone. Haha. We also started the first stages of working on the model of the site Wednesday night, which we built as a surprise for Chris & Tammy and the Jesse Brooks Foundation.
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