Readers and More Readers!

Sometimes God answers prayers very quickly!
On Tuesday morning of that first week in Chimala all four of us were busy reading with people that had come to our Information Meeting when we heard a lot of noise outside of the building. When we went outside, we saw about 100 Primary School Children on the porch to our building and spilling out onto the grass. Their teacher had brought them to read with us! Needless to say, we were overwhelmed! We could not possibly read with so many, so Ron asked the teacher which ones were the best English speakers. The teacher turned to the students and asked them who was good at English. Most children raised their hands! So it was up to us to determine which ones could speak well enough to read in the LST program. It took us several days to test the English of all who wanted to come. The ones we were turning away were in tears, and some even tried to sneak back in to be tested by someone else in hopes that another person would qualify them to have lessons! Because it was so difficult to turn children away, we ended up letting some small groups of students read with us instead of the normal and the preferred method of one-on-one lessons. Most of the students who ended up qualifying were the older ones, from 15-17 years old, but there were a couple of 14 year olds who spoke English better than the older ones. The English level still wasn't what it should have been to read and really understand the lessons, but we all worked very hard with these young people. Many had different religious backgrounds---they were sent to the Chimala Primary School because it has a reputation as being a good school. They especially liked attention from us because they were living in the dorms and had been away from their own families for many months. They were starving for adult interaction.

God definitely answered our prayers for enough readers to fill our time slots. We felt our "cup was running over"! After three weeks, when Debbie D. and Eddie left, many of the kids were in tears about them leaving. The same happened when Debbie E. and Muriel and Ron and I left at the end of the six-week project.
Following are photos of some of the children. You will notice that many look to be about 10 years old. We thought so too, but they are actually several years older!

Our workdays were now very full!

Our daily schedule, Monday through Friday, began with a walk around the Mission property, then breakfast. We went to a devotional each morning at 7:30----either at the hospital or at the shop. Our reading day began at 9:00, with readers scheduled each hour until our lunchbreak from 12:00-1:00. Reading sessions begain again at 1:00 p.m. and lasted until 6:00 p.m. We were tired by the time evening arrived! We were always so grateful to walk into our kitchen and find food in the oven waiting for us! Evenings consisted mainly of record-keeping from the day's work, statistics reports, and party planning. There was no time for T.V. and little time for reading. Bedtime came early for some of us....