Last week a team of eight from Smile went on a mission trip to a village called Kuffu, to run a Bible study camp for the children in the area. We camped at Goshem community centre which was made up of Kuffu community church and some school buildings, as well as offering youth and family classes and a drop-in centre. We arrived on Sunday and were warmly welcomed by the people at the centre. We were straight into the camp on Monday which came as a bit of a shock as we were late arriving the night before!
The routine of the day was, devotions with our team in the morning, then songs and worship with the children, Bible classes and activities, games and sports, porridge for the children and then home time. Every evening there was a Christian film projected in the church and there was always a huge number of people who came to watch, children and adults, around 150 maybe more at times.
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| Morning Devotions |
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| Praise and Worship |
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| Dancing |
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| Teaching |
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| The older class |
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| Building blocks with baby class |
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Parachute games
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| Porridge |
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| Evening film |
Most of the children were of primary age so we split them into baby class and the older class. The theme for the Bible teaching was the parables which gave us a chance to be creative in our lessons. In the older class we would teach them a story, do an activity and memory verse which the children were so good at remembering. One of my favourite lessons was when we did the story of the lost sheep and we acted out the Shepard going to find the sheep, getting the children active and they enjoyed shouting "LARRY" as we were looking! Then, they had to look for Ken in the compound, as he was being the lost sheep, and there was great excitement when they found him hiding in the shower! On Thursday we also had a great lesson on the parable of the wise and foolish builders. We told the story of the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built on the sand, with visual aids, and then we went out into the compound and split the children into 2 teams. In the compound there was a big pile of sand, some rock, and bricks lying around which was handy! So one team were building a house on the sand and the others build a house on the rock. They even used dirt and water to make cement and the houses looked brilliant when they had finished. Then, we used jerry cans to pour water on each of the house and sure enough the house on the sand fell down and the house on the rock stood firm! It was a great activity and the children really enjoyed it and learned the story really well.
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| Building the house on the rock |
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| The house on the rock! |
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| The house on the sand! |
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| The house on the sand after the water... |
On Friday we did the parable of the hidden treasure and after the lesson we played various treasure hunt games. This was really fun and children loved hunting for sweets, doing blindfolded challenges, apple bobbing for sweets and putting their faces in bowls of flour to find the prizes! It was a boiling hot day but really fun.
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| Blindfolded treasure hunt |
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| Faces in flour! |
As Friday was our last day with the children we had a present giving time after games and porridge where we gave out school supplies, socks, tights, stickers, bags and various presents that people had donated to Smile. Some of the kids had been really amazing in the Bible lessons throughout the week and the little boy in the photo bellow had remembered every story from the whole week and he had a special prize.
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| The children with their presents |
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| Giving gifts |
On Saturday we had a day of community outreach and fumigation where we spent the day going around the village and nearby area, visiting peoples homes, talking with them and fumigating the houses against the mosquitoes, cockroaches etc, I also had a go at fumigating which was a new experience!
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| Me fumigating! |
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| Moses fumigating |
We left on Sunday (25th) after a great week and it was sad saying goodbye to all the children. We went to the service at Kuffu community church before we left where we were invited to the front to tell people about what we had been doing, and they thanked us for our work which was really nice.
It was sad to leave but it is nice to be back in a house with mattresses and running water as in the village we had to collect water from a pump in jerry cans and I realised how hard it is to carry water even a short distance, especially in such heat! However cold showers weren't too bad as it was so hot it was quite a relief. We didn't get any parasites or 'jiggers' which are fleas which burrow into your feet! So I am very happy about that. We returned well and happy although tired.
This week we have been sorting out ourselves and preparing for the start of the new term, schools go back today and we start at Ruth Mother Care tomorrow. So we will be back to the routine of teaching Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, community outreach on Thursdays and kids clubs on Fridays. The only difference this term is that instead of being at Ruth Mother Care on Mondays we will be continuing with our English catch-up classes in the slums, that we started before Christmas But this term we will be teaching only the children who don't go to school so very basic English, writing, reading and speaking. This is a new idea which we are excited about as it will be benefiting the children who have no education in the FBC slum area.
Thank you very much for your prayers and support, it is really encouraging to us. My prayer request for the new term would be the success of this catch-up class in the slums and that the children would really benefit from the teaching and support we will be giving them.
