This week of ministry has been my favorite so far in South Africa!! We got to work at a local school called Ithemba (It-emba). It teaches students in Grade R, which is equivalent to our kindergarten and is 5-6 years old. It also has Double R classes, which are 4 year olds and Triple R classes which are 3 year olds. The language of the school is Afrikaans so it has been really interesting to learn to connect with kids so young through a language barrier. The kids however speak Xhosa at home so they are also just learning Afrikaans for the first time. Fortunately, they are all so full of love and energy that the language doesn't really affect them!! My team and I are working as teachers assistants all in separate classrooms. I got assigned to a Triple R classroom which is so awesome! I work with Teacher Thelma, who is so kind and fun to be working with. Our class does lots of coloring sheets and sings lots of songs since they are so young, and Teacher Thelma helps them get used to the structure of going to school. I help with classroom management and organizing kids for her so she can focus on their plans for the day. This week has included making posters of the alphabet, painting the kids hands for handprint artwork, and hanging up coloring sheets from the kids. The school also serves the kids 3 meals during their 4 hours in the classroom. I get to make runs to the kitchen to pick up their meals throughout the day and also take them on lots and lots of bathroom breaks!!

All double and triple R kids go to recess at the same time which means that I get to go outside with my class but also get to meet the children from the other classes. The kids love playing with our hair. We'll sit on the ground and just let them all gather and start braiding or twisting it. Within a few minutes I'm usually surrounded by at least 10 kids playing with my hair, and then about 5 more all squishing together for the chance to sit in my lap. Some of the girls will hum a song as they braid my hair and you can tell that their mom does the same thing with them at home! All the girls from my team are usually in a very similar situation and we all compare our braids by the end of recess! This will be our ministry for the rest of our time in South Africa and I’m very excited to see how my relationships with the teachers and students continue to develop over the next 6 weeks!

This weekend was two days of much needed rest after being so high energy with the kids all week. I got to sleep in and then head to the beach for some all squad pictures! We got everyone all dressed up in relatively nice outfits and set out. This is our first all squad picture since training camp. We then split off into teams and got to take some pictures with all of our team leaders! Its so fun to see everyone split off into their teams and see all the friendship dynamics. After pictures, we changed and headed back down to the beach to try out some of our surfing skills! I’ve only tried surfing one other time so I already knew it was gonna be hard. I forgot how much upper body strength it takes to constantly be swimming out through the incoming waves. I got to stand up on 3 baby waves and then decided that was enough surfing for me and I spent the rest of the day laying out in the sun! On Sunday we all got driven over to the Global Church for a beautiful sermon and got to hear some more about the Global Community. The pastor picked us up and drove us to church because it's about an hour walk from the campsites to the Global Campus but only a 10 minute drive and we were all dressed up. Then when it was time for him to drop us back off after church, he had us all sit in the van and then gave me his 2 year old daughter to hold. Initially she was all excited as she had been playing with her friends in the children's church, but by the time we had reached the campsite she had fallen asleep. She was so sweet and precious it was definitely the highlight of my day!

January 20-January 26 2024