Luke 21:1-4 He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”
Jeff taught music to our kids this morning while I did the laundry. I have been doing all of our laundry by hand in our shower. This takes about an hour or so in total, to wash, rinse, and then hang to dry. The spinner here on the mission works wonders to get the water out of the clothes, but it is currently broken so the clothes take a bit long to dry, usually about 2 days.
After breakfast walked over the school with Uncle John and Lachlan to watch the morning assembly. It was really neat to see how the kids start their school day each morning. The assembly includes prayers, lessons to be found in scripture, and today it included a new song and some physical training. This was really neat.
On the walk home, Lucia attached herself to Uncle John and Lachlan.
As I am sure you have figured out from my previous blog posts, homeschooling our children has been a bit challenging. Actually, it has been the only thing where we feel truly challenged. This journey, while there have been challenges along the way, both Jeff and I feel at peace with the challenges. We don’t find ourselves getting frustrated or irritated with anything other than the homeschooling. We had a realization today (actually Jeff did, but he shared it with me). We have allowed God to plan and led us on this journey of service and we have been at peace with everything, even in the midst of a challenge. Homeschooling, however, we have not let God led the way. We have continually planned this aspect ourselves and it has been a constant struggle, leaving us feeling exhausted, frustrated, and even angry. We have decided that this is where we have gone wrong; we didn’t let God lead the way.
So we are giving homeschooling over to God. Obviously our kids need schooling and education, and so we will continue to teach them. But we have noticed that we have not allowed God to do His work. From this moment forward, we are going to lift every school lesson and day up to God for his guidance. What get’s done, get’s done. Our kids are very good students and we believe that we have put the emphasis on the wrong aspect of their education, completing IXL assignments (this is like an on-line school that aligns with the Common Core Standards). There is going to be a lot more prayer and asking for God’s help and direction from us and the kids. There will be less pressure from us for the kids to complete a certain amount of schooling in a day. We need to encourage more conversation with them and them with each other.
We have been missing so much of where we are and losing sight of what we were called to do. Here we are on a Christian orphanage at the base of the Himalayas and we are sticking ourselves in a cafeteria to teach the children. This is not working and no one is winning with this system! I can already feel a huge stressor being lifted off of our shoulders and I am relieved.
At tea this morning Uncle Rick mentioned that he could use Jeff and I’s help with the roof of the Big Boy’s Hostel to which we were so happy to oblige. Katie was able to enlist our kids with setting up the Christmas tree in the Nursery Hostel while we worked on the roof.
This was a great opportunity for both of us to finally do some hard work here on the mission and it was wonderful. We helped move sheet metal from the ground to the roof and then into place on the roof while Uncle Rick and Sunny bolted them into place. We were able to get about 3/4 of the roof completed until we ran out of sheet metal. This was such a great experience and we both enjoyed it a lot. We are looking forward to helping finish off the roof on Monday.
Sara's Daily Scripture and Journal 