A bit about the preschool

I started my volunteer project yesterday, and it is great! I am placed in a preschool - the kids are about 4 and 5 yrs old. There is around 15 or 16 kids. They come from a poor neighbourhood.

There is another girl at the preschool volunteering as well. Her name is Sarah and she knows a lot of Spanish, so that is very good. Praise the Lord - He always takes care of us!

Here is a picture of the neighbourhood that the preschool is in. The wetness on the left hand side is raw sewage. The good news is that it is in a trench and not right on the walkway.

 Another picture, this one showing the flow of the sewage better. I walk up this pathway to get to work.

 This picture is just above where the preschool is. The man who took us to our work project yesterday - his name is Ricardo - was saying that he hoped that house would survive the wet season, but he wasn't sure if it would or not.

 This is a picture of the preschool from the outside. The doorway down the bottom is quite interesting. It is very low, below the sidewalk and you really have to watch your head when you enter. I am not sure why the doorway is so low, unless the roadway was built up after the building was erected. Maybe I will ask someone tomorrow and let you know.

 Here the children are having their snack outside of the school. They go out the back door into a kind of small courtyard and eat their snack. They all bring their little chairs to sit on and the garbage pail is placed in the centre of the circle for all to use.

 Here are a couple of kids working on a drawing. When I took this picture, they immediately jumped up and wanted to see themselves. Because it was going to be very disruptive it is the only photo I took in the class. I will try to take some more tomorrow since their is going to be a workshop for the parents at the school tomorrow. That should be fun and very interesting.

 This is the teacher. She is very good, even though the kids are little they are learning how to cursive write their vowels and some of the older ones are even learning to add.

School starts with a prayer, and about 6 songs. The kids line up and pray and then sing. Today after the singing Sarah and I worked on teaching the kids some english. We worked on some primary colours, the numbers 1-10 and a simple greeting of "what is your name. My name is....". Afterwords the kids drew a picture and coloured it, worked on writing the vowels, some arithmetic and then after snack the did a craft.

I am at the volunteer project for about 3 - 3 1/2 hours a day. The kids are all very bright and most are interested in what they are doing.

There is one little boy who I think lives next door to the school. He peeks his head in when we are teaching the English and he is hanging around at snack time. He is a bit older than the kids in the preschool and today I was wondering why he wasn't in school himself. The answer that popped into my head was that he is probably a child that requires a sponsor - like through World Vision or Christian Children's Fund - as his parents are too poor to send him to school. Tomorrow I will ask the teacher about him and again let you know.

Please pray for the children that we are teaching. That they continue to grow in their learning and have caring and motivated teachers continue to inspire them. Also pray for the little boy who is not in school. That a way is opened up for him to go and learn and enjoy his childhood.

Also if you can pray for my son Mike and his girlfriend Chelsea who are expecting a baby within the next two weeks that God bless them, and keep them and protect them and their precious child that is about to be born.

Take care all and God bless you and all those that you love.