holiday time

My end of term cold hit me with a vengence but once I was able to sleep-in and relax I was able to get over the worst of it. Hurray! Unfortunately poor Lina seems to have her end of term bronchitis which has messed up her term break plans. Not just because being sick on your holidays is horrible, but also because she was unable to drive down to Lusaka as planned. However, the Lord is still in control, Hannah (who had planned to get a ride with Lina) was able to get a ride with the Sr. Towses to Chingola and then with the Studds to Lusaka so that she could meet her father and brothers at the airport. The vehicle that Lina was going to be driving is sorta not working right as the battery is pretty dead. Today we pushed started it and were able to get to Ikelenge and back, but the whole time I was worried that if I turned it off I wouldn't be able to get it started again. So it's a good thing the girls didn't try to take it down! I will (Lord willing) be heading down to Lusaka in Jill Avery's truck (she and Bethany are in Europe on holiday)and Lina is able to get a ride with me. Unfortunately it's only a 2 seater, so on the way home, after I've picked up June, one of us will have to ride in the back. Not ideal, but we'll make it work. TIA! A praise item to note, I was able to have a few good interviews with parents/guardians of some of my students that have been struggling a bit. It was refreshing to see that they want to help out any way they can and are backing me up. You never quite know how parents are going to react when they see poor report cards and some of them will blame the teacher (as happened to Lina :( ) so I am thankful that mine went so well. Now I have to wait till September to see if it was just talk or if they actually did work with their children. Unless something major/exciting happens. I probably won't blog again until I get to Lusaka. Please pray for safe travels!

And suddenly it's the end of term...

Yes, the end of term draweth near! This time next week the station will be eerily quiet and all the staff will be rejoicing in their own particular way. It has been a very busy term, cramming so many things into 10 short weeks, but we seemed to have made it through. We've had LOTS of visitors and to quote an old saying "all our visitors bring us joy. some buy coming. others by going." (I won't go into details on who falls into which category) Despite all the cramming and such I also feel it was quite a productive term. My students have really come a long way and (although I need the break) I am looking forward to how much we can accomplish next term. I am especially thankful at this time of the term to only have 10 students as that meant I only had 10 report cards to do! Teaching grade one is definatley challenging but one of the perks is that they don't have to take exams... which means I don't have to mark exams... and was therefor able to get all my reports finished by Tuesday night! I do feel kind of bad though as the rest of the teachers are still slaving away on theirs. One challenge I've had this term is trying to find out how I can better help my students who are struggling with their learning. one boy (who i think i mentioned in previous blogs) appears to have dyslexic symptoms. Zambia is not equipt to deal with things like this so his parents are unable to get him tested. I've done a few quick "online" tests but unless I want to drop a few hundred bucks, i can't get any real evaluating done. My mission for the holidays is to arm myself with as much info and resources as I can get my hands on (which is limited to the internet) to try and prepare for how to better help him next term. Please pray! I would also GREATLY appreciate any info anyone can share of helpful techniques either from teaching or personal experiences.