Tuesday, March 13, 2007

School has begun!!!!

Yes, school started yesterday and only one of our 20 girls was without a teacher the first day. Today, everyone was at school. The three in first grade (two of the three are 7 and 10 and have never been to school before and the other is 9 and went to kinder 4 years agao and then no more school!) are doing well. Sinilda can write her first name and 6 weeks ago she could scarcely copy a circle. It is only the second day but they come home happy and are doing their homework. We will be 21 girls tomorrow with a new 14 year old from the Darien part of Panama (that is the part towards Columbia) who has been out of school at least two years. She will go to 7th grade. It is nice to have the 5 hours of quiet in the afternoon to do things, prepare some teaching materials etc.

We are however having several kids with fairly high fevers that are hard to get down so I made two different trips to the doctor today. I deal with the kids who have something acute or that needs immediate attention, in my opinion.

After 9 days with abundant water we have been two more days without water!

Tomorrow I chair the first meeting of a group at my church which will begin to develop a ministry for people of the church who are homeless or nearly so. My plan is to define who we are serving (for me it is more than homeless men), what things need doing and what we should/could begin with, and find a name in Spanish that is more enclusive than "ministry to homeless men".

Blessings, Tia Sue

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