It's April!

Many things have come and gone in the space between this post and the last. Valentine's Day and related crafts, all of Lent, Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, a visit from my Goshen room-mate and pal Emily, a trip to London, visiting the London Mennonite Centre, two weeks of Easter Break from working in the primary school, a day out with the African Women's Circle to Hull and the aquarium there in, a trip to an indoor water park with the kids from the after school club, another meeting of the African Women's Circle, completely planned and led by yours truly, a retreat to Corrymela in Northern Ireland with some of the other Mennonite Mission Network workers in the UK, a terrible bout of stomach flu, and attending the Diocesan Day of Bradford, Matthew's 21st birthday, and being burgled, just to list a few stand out points. There would have been pictures from some of these with comments, but, as they were only saved on the unit computer, which was one of the things stolen, that's got to be canceled. While we were eating out for Matt's birthday just yesterday with the Biltons, his flat was broken into. We're both fine, and we are insured, so we can get replacements of everything that was taken, except, of course the photos and other personal files on the computer. That's really the worst of it. We are getting better locks put on the flats tomorrow, so hopefully, this won't happen again. Sure, it's a bit jarring, a bit depressing, but I don't feel like spending the rest of this blog entry dwelling on it. One thing I have thought about is that these guys who took the stuff (I'm not making gender stereotypes there, as we are basically 100 percent sure who did it) were once primary school kids, sat in someone's classroom. I wonder where the kids I work with are heading, and I suspect that unless there is serious intervention, several of the lads will get to the point where they don't see what's wrong with breaking into someone's house and ripping their stuff off. There, that's my rant. Now, what I'd like to spend a bit of concentration on is this last African Women's Circle meeting, and leading children's worship last week with Matthew.
I was in charge of running the most recent African Women's Circle by myself, deciding what we'd make for lunch, doing the finance stuff, making sure everything ran smoothly. This had not happened before, generally I'm more of an assistant. So, naturally I was rather nervous about this, knowing that I would need to really be top form in terms of being conversational, in French as well as English, which in and of it self can be pressure enough. Also, I'm younger than all of these women, and that feels odd, especially knowing that most African societies put much more value on age. Well, I decided to make Kusherie, an Egyptian lentil dish in More with Less, something I've made quite a few times. I wanted to do a vegetarian meal with protein, red lentils cooked in with the rice, and also pretty easy and cheap to make. It was a good choice, as it turned out; many of them had not heard of lentils or known how to prepare them, and seemed quite keen on them afterwards. Anyway, that went really well. I was able to be really conversational when needed, welcoming, and I think the cooking went well, people all helping out with the chopping and stuff, and clean up. It felt like being a real sort of teacher, conducting a cooking course. I was amazed at how confident I felt once we actually got going. It's nice when you can rise to the occasion, and have fun doing so.
The same sort of thing happened with children's worship. I'm not sure if I've explained how it works at Great Horton Methodist. You see, there is no Sunday school time like I'm accustomed to in the States. So what happens is that everyone starts the service together, and after opening hymns, a corporate prayer or two, and the reading, the children and the teachers go upstairs to the classrooms/playrooms upstairs where we split off into the crèche and the class, the dividing line seeming to be at around 4 years old. Matthew and I are part of a rotation that leads the class part about once a month. It's a bit crazy to plan for because you never know if you'll get two or twelve, middle school aged or early elementary. This time we had the full gamut, about ten all together ages 4 to 18. And it went really well. We're both learning how to be in front of kids confidently and effectively and enjoy it. We were looking at some text about the early church in Acts, and there is mention of the people eating together, every meal was a celebration, pooling resources to support eachother. We started off all sitting around a table with our table cloth from home, a few candles, and some cinnamon orange bread I made the other day. We asked what the kids do when they're going to eat a meal with their families, do they thank God in any way? A few said that their families say a blessing, but none of them sang their prayers. So Matt and I sang them a few songs, Johnny Appleseed, Hands Hands Hands, and God is Great. They were spell bound. I don't think they are at all accustomed to being sang to like that. We all sang Hands Hands Hands together with the motions, and ate the bread. Then we made a collage poster of little drawings of our "resources," some of my favorites that showed up were a whole gang of red stick figures, a kid climbing a tree, and bubble letters saying "Fashion for LIFE." It's just really good to see that we can do this, that they enjoy it, and just possibly get something out of it. And it's reassuring that even though I get a bit nervous about leading, I really do okay.
I would have to say, then, that I'm feeling really positive about the work here right now. I'm certainly learning, and building some good relationships. It's been 8 months now, incredibly; time has really flown since Christmas. I don't know if I've said on the blog, but I'm moving to Denver next year with some friends from Goshen. So thinking about that is become more necessary. Right then, take care everyone. Peace