Two Weeks In...

It has now been close to two full weeks being here in Kigali and things are going really well!

To clarify, I am teaching in what is called a "nursery school" here but actually means Pre-K to Kindergarten age children. Our school in Nabycindu has 4 classrooms. There are currently close to 200 children in those rooms ranging in age from 3 to 7 years old. There are 5 teachers right now and one Primary 1 class (basically like our 1st grade equivalent). Esron told me the other day that the parents in the village are practically begging him to add a Primary 2 class. This week we finished up in the first classroom of about 43 three and four year olds. It was so precious to see them recite their Bible verse (Genesis 1:1) in English and in thier mother tongue, Kinyarwanda. Each student was able to say it individually...SO cute! We feel that God has allowed us to teach very effectively this week. We also presented the gospel through the wordlessbook on Thursday and are praying those sweet little hearts can understand everything.

Other highlights this week were meeting with our small group of women on Wednesday afternoons. Katy and I felt very humbled to be a part of this amazing group of women, mostly consisting of pastor's wives and leaders in the church who get toegther to pray for their families and church. They are wanting us to teach for two full hours on those days, we are in prayer about excatly what topics to choose and which would be most appropriate for the group. Esron's wife Kezia' will be translating and she did an outstanding job, her English has improved so much. I wish I could say that about my Kinyarwanda! Sometimes I just want to talk to them so badly and I can't!

Another blessing has been with the ladies Bible study we were supposed to be hosting at the Ligue but will now be held in the home of a lady who works there. Her name (I think ;) is Ivette. Mary (our friend on staff at the Ligue) helped get the group together and led us to the house last night. Katy and I have seen a lot of the big city and the countryside, but really have not been able to see how the true working class live in Kigali. It was such a blessing and very humbling. We were led down a steep path into a maze of narrow walkways compacted together on the hillside to Ivette's house. We held our first bible study in a room about 4ft by 10ft with close to 12 ladies and a group of babies and toddlers. There were many older women (one who was the mother of 8 and had adopted 4 more children) and a few were close to my age with 2 or 3 children. We are doing the study at 5:30 in the evenings and we think things will work out great and we will have enough light to do it. There was no electricity in the house and only one small window for light. Katy and I both were fighting back tears yesterday afterwards talking about it. I am really so excited about these next 5 weeks.

I have also been able to hang out with friends Sarah and Sylvan which has been a blast. They are such a fun couple! Tommorow we are leading another bible study at Esron's church and look forward to that. There is so much more but I can't put it allinto words!

Thanks for the prayers, Katy and I are getting better sleep and the two studies we have done so far started off well. Keep praying! Missing everybody more than you know!

:) Melissa