First Day of School!

It was great! The kids came, I couldn't pronounce their names, but they were learning and the building looked A - mazing, and I now have beautiful "Name Stars" decorating the walls of my room!!! Yay! I am so glad to have the school year on the way.  The school is made up of mostly Ghanaians, then Americans, then South Africans, then Koreans, then various other nationalities. Most of my students today spoke English.  The only ones that I couldn't communicate with spoke French - which I have absolutely NO background in! So....I spoke with the French teacher, Simone Bado, and I think we have worked it out for me to sit in on some of her French classes!  The only person I can speak Spanish with is the Exceptional Education teacher, who is from Puerto Rico - and she speaks much better English than my Spanish!  (she also wears higher heeled shoes than I do!)

One small student that I taught today, had a big impact on me.  He was fine when class started, but somewhere in the middle, he got really upset, and I didn't know if I had said something to upset him.  When I had a minute to talk to him quietly, I tried to ask what was going on, he said it was his stomach first, then it was something else ... I realized who he was, and that his family had recently moved here ... so ... I was able to talk to him about how and why he was so sad.   This precious little boy is going through so much right now.  We talked about the friends that he is missing from home and how it is so hard to be in such a different place.  God really used this to show me even more reasons why am here and even more ways to minister to these kids and share Christ's love with them.  I am here to love on the Africans, who have never had hope for their lives, but also to minister to and love on these kids who are experiencing tremendous feelings of loss and sadness, but come from a place that I can completely relate to.  It is so cool to see so clearly how God works for the good of those who love Him, ALL for His glory.  

Please continue to pray for our school, for all the students who come from all over the world to learn at AIS, and also, please pray for my time at the orphanage tomorrow.  I'll try to be on skype during the day tomorrow - so that you could skype me and see the school! Hope to see you!