God's Protection

I have no doubt that God has big plans for the lives of each of my students. I want to share a story with you all of something that happened a few weeks ago. At our staff meeting that morning I decided to pray for God to protect and keep all of my students and teachers that day. This is a pretty routine prayer for me and I thought fairly little of it as I was saying the words. Later that day I got a phone call from one of the teachers asking me about something and then right before we hung up he asked me if I had heard about the accident. Immediately my heart dropped. I told him I hadn’t and he proceeded to tell me the events that had happened that day.
Our children walk about 30-40 minutes from their homes to school each day. On this day our students were going home instead of coming to the Ed Center so they were walking with some of their friends. Their friends decided to ask a man for a ride home and 5 of my students also got in the car. They told the man to drop them at a certain point on the road. As the man approached that place he showed no indication that he was going to slow down, so the kids started saying, “stop here stop here!” The man’s response was, “tell me a story.” Weird response right? I still have no idea what that is suppose to mean… So, the man continues driving past where he was supposed to drop them. One of my students started getting worried the man had bad intentions so she opened the door and JUMPED out of the car! Can you imagine? The car was probably going about 40 mph and she just jumped out of it! Talk about bravery! After she jumped out, the man stopped, the other kids got out of the car, and the man just drove away – not even checking to see the condition of the girl. Later that day, there were reports on the radio that some kids in town had been abducted. I cannot say for sure that it could have been my kids that the reporter was talking about, but I am so glad that I never have to find out!
Praise the Lord that the girl who jumped out of the car didn’t even have one broken bone! She was pretty beat up. In fact, when I went to visit her the next day I hardly recognized her. She had some pretty deep wounds on her face and arms, but no concussion and not a single broken bone. After a week she was laughing and going about like normal.
Like I said before, there is no way of knowing for sure what would have happened to those children, but I am giving all the credit and glory to the Lord for protecting them that day. I am so thankful that my students have the Holy Spirit and listen to its leading. I am so thankful that we serve a God who protects and cares for us. That we have a God who hears and answers our prayers.
This is only one example of a “close call” I have had with my students. I have had others that almost got hit by a car or have fallen ill. But God continues to protect His children and that is why I have no doubt in my mind that God is going to use the lives of these children in very big ways to spread his kingdom in their community, their country and the world. I feel so honored to be a small part of their lives.

Some of the wonderful future leaders I get to work with!

Taking back the Crazy

       As I clumsily walked along the narrow, overgrown path with one student on each hand and another's arms wrapped around my waist, the power of what we were about to do all of a sudden hit me.  KYD has been struggling and struggling with their dry season farming.  They have become so discouraged, almost to the point of wanting to give up on the project.  Currently they are suffering attacks from some nasty crickets that are destroying the tomato plants. So, I decided to do the only thing that I, not being a farmer, knew how to do.  I decided to take my students to pray for the land. No big deal right? We were just going to walk down at the beginning of class, say a few prayers for the land and then continue on with our day.  It didn't seem that big of a deal to me when I first thought of the idea.  To be honest, I was thinking more about how it would be a good opportunity for my younger students to see what they can be a part of once they get older. I wasn't really thinking about the effects of our prayers.
But like I said, the excitement and craziness of what we were doing washed over me once we were actually walking to the farm. We were walking to a seemingly cursed farmland to pray that God would make that land fertile.  We didn't have any pesticides to spray or any coverings to protect the plants.  All we had were our voices and our faith in God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things.  Our faith that God can actually do the seemingly impossible and make that land produce a bountiful crop.  As I stood watching my students, ages 7-12, squat down, burry their faces in their hands, and ask God that the blood of Jesus would come and cover that land and that he would grow a great crop there, I caught a glimpse of the kingdom of God that is spreading here.  We are all growing in our trust that God can provide all that we need and that He is the One who can make a desolate land come to life. That is a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God here on Earth.
Just the other day, the KYD planted a new batch of tomato plants.  Who knows what will happen, but I know that we are having faith that God will bless that land and that the scene will be like Psalm 126, which says, "Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.  He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him."  We serve a big God who loves and promises us anything we ask in Jesus' name.  We know our God is Jehovah Jireh, the Provider, and has always been and will always be faithful to His Word.

        Part of me was feeling like I had lost some of my crazy.  That part of me that is so in tune with the Holy Spirit that I can hear it telling me to do things that seem strange, things that are in line with the Kingdom of God.  I have missed it, but I don't know if it was ever really gone, or if I was choosing not to acknowledge it.  I wasn't looking at any of my situations as something spiritual, it just became life -- mundane.  But we when ask God to give us eyes to see and ears to hear, we are opened up to a whole world that has always been there, we just choose not to see it.  There is so much more going on in the world than what we can see with our plain, physical eyes. So, in asking God to give me eyes to see, He allowed me to see going and praying for a farm in a new light, in the light of His kingdom and it is such a sweet way to see life.  I pray I will always have eyes to see the world in light of his kingdom!

Home Visit

Sometimes it is really easy for me to forget the condition of the homes that my students come from.  I forget that my students have undergone great hardships at such a young age. This sounds strange, but when they come to the Ed Center they seem so "normal".  They are eager to learn. They smile and laugh. They shout things out when they aren't suppose to. They get sad when they have to move their name down on the behavior chart. They have days when they aren't so talkative. Kids are so good at being kids sometimes that I forget that my students go home to homes where they don't get to be kids.
This past week one of our kids had typhoid so I decided to do a home visit to check up on how he was doing.  I also had some parent surveys to do so I visited a few of the other kids' homes too so I could meet their caregivers. First off, I didn't realize how far these kids have to trek every day to school and then to the ed center and then back home.  They live in a part of the village that I had never visited before and I wouldn't be surprised if it took them more than an hour to walk home from the Ed Center, which is after walking quite a distance to school and then to the Ed Center earlier in the day.  Secondly, I forget that my students play such a huge role in supporting their families. They fetch the water, collect firewood, do the cooking, help with the farming, and watch after their younger siblings. I forget that my kids are dealing with their parents' deaths or even being abandoned by a parent that is still living.  I forget that they have suffered such great loss at such a young age and continue to suffer loss as other family members they have grown close to also pass away.
I don't say all of these things to evoke pity from you, because these kids don't need your pity.  Like I said, that is just normal here. My kids have so much joy that comes from the Lord.  They are made complete in Christ, not lacking anything. But I wanted to share with you the reality of my students' lives here because unlike your pity, they can use your compassion and prayers.  They can use your prayers that they will be able to fill the loss of their earthly father and/or mother will the presence of their Heavenly Father and Creator. You can pray that God will provide for them good role models and mentors that will pour into their lives.  You can pray for their surviving parents and caregivers that they too will fill the loss in their own lives with the Lord.  The widows have lost their spouse, the grandmothers have lost their children, and the Aunties have lost a sibling. And we can use your prayers as well as we try and figure out how us teachers at Igmin Kibe can best meet all the needs of our students -- the physical, educational, emotional, social, and spiritual needs that we all have.
        Also, the child who had typhoid came to the Ed Center on Monday feeling much better with a giant smile on his face! Praise The Lord!  All the students shared that they were happy because God healed him!

Love is in the air

Why are they all standing on one leg? I have no idea but it
 makes them even more lovable! 

        I have a confession to make that sounds a little creepy, but I promise you it is not... sometimes at night I just sit at my computer and look at pictures of my students. I don't even have that many pictures, but I just love looking at them!  I sit there thinking how much I love them and my heart feels like it wants to burst at the seams with emotion.  Maybe it's because it was Valentine's Day and love is in the air, but I doubt that is the reason I feel this way.  I can't believe sometimes that God called me to this life.  What did I do to deserve this? Nothing, God just loves me that much! Wow, I am so grateful for that.
Friday is one of my favorite parts of the week.  We don't have classes on Fridays but instead we meet as teachers. I know you are thinking how can Friday be one of my favorite parts when I don't see my students and I was just gushing over them.  But what I love about Fridays is that we get a chance as teachers to talk about the week and then spend time in prayer for our students' lives in school, at the Ed Center, and at home.  We also get to spend time praying for each other and for the community.  I love the teachers that I work with just as much as I love the students (although I don't sit and look at pictures of them at night because I think that would be seriously creepy).  God has provided so well for the Ed Center by giving us Nigerian teachers that truly love The Lord and are loved by The Lord and then let that love pour into the children they teach.  I feel so blessed to have the privilege to work with the people that I do.  
One funny story from this week happened on Valentine's Day.  I got all of the kids a little chocolate for Valentine's Day and I bought each of the teachers a chocolate bar as well.  Well, it was one of the teacher's first time ever tasting chocolate and he LOVED it!  It was like he was a 4 year old tasting chocolate for the first time! His eyes lit up with delight.  I jokingly warned him to be careful not to eat the whole thing because he might get a stomach ache and his face got all serious like "Oh no are you serious?!"  It was too funny! So in the end he ate half before class and half after class, just to be safe :)

The picture below are of some of the students with their MTN (a cellular service here like Verizon) raincoats and backpacks that were donated to their school.  They are so cute in them, too bad rainy season isn't for a few months, although I give MTN credit for being ahead of the game!

The Good and The Bad

             Consistent with life, this past week (which I can't believe was only my 3rd week here) has been filled with really great things and also really hard things.  I think I will start with the hard because then we can end on a really wonderful note!

            This week we had to go and visit the students’ school because we were having a few problems.  Some of our students told us that their teachers had beat them because they didn’t bring in toilet paper like they were asked to do. Many of you who know me well know I don’t even believe in spanking your own children, so you can imagine how hard this is on my heart to hear about this treatment of my students.  Sometimes I hate that I can’t control the environment that these children are in all day long.  It’s not just here in Nigeria either.  I am sure that every teacher in America has also wished they could rescue a student from the environment they are living in when they are away from us, but we can’t and that sucks.  Anyways, we went and spoke with the head teacher and explained to her that these children are very vulnerable because of all they have gone through in life at such a young age and that we are the ones providing for them so they should not be punished when we don’t bring in the toilet paper for them.  She seemed to understand and I am praying that I never have to hear about my students being beat again.

students at Igmin Kibe with Esther

            Another one of my students came up to me today very seriously and said “Aunty Anna, I need to tell you that I wasn’t in school on Friday” (part of the rules of our Ed Center is that in order for them to come they have to go to school).  I appreciated his honesty and asked him why he didn’t go to school. He told me that his cousin, who was just less than 1 year old, had died. Gosh, it just about broke my heart again.  We talked for a short time about how he was doing and feeling and how his family was.  To be honest, I never know how to handle these kinds of situations.  I never know what to say, I mean what can you say? 

            So those were just a few of the hard things this past week, but there were so many good things too!  Ayuba is one of the other teachers here at Igmin Kibe.  Ayuba teaches the students that have already gone through the speaking and learning to read English curriculum.  He and I decided to start a new curriculum with his students and I am really excited about it.  We decided to go with a curriculum/structure called Daily 5 (which is pretty popular in the US).  Today we had our first lesson and it went really well!  I think it is a great fit for these kids because it provides them with the structure and modeling they are so accustomed to with their schools but also helps them learn how to work and learn independently and gives them a chance to think more critically and be creative.  Ayuba is really excited about it and that makes me even more excited about it!

Some of the students in Ayuba's class 

            Last Sunday we took the kids from Destiny’s Home (a children’s home here in Jos that we partner with) to a church where they were invited to sing.  I am really encouraged because this church has really felt a call to care for orphans and wants to partner with Destiny’s Home as well.  They took just one offering and all the money they collected went straight to the home. They literally handed Sandra, the director, the offering baskets (although they later came and put all the cash in a black plastic bag so they could have the baskets back).  The kids did an awesome job singing and dancing and got the whole church to join in (which really doesn’t take much in a Nigerian church)!  It was a really great day!

            So those are just a few highlights of this past week.  I think I need to start blogging throughout the week so these blog posts don’t have to be so dang long!

Grace, Peace, and Love,

Anna

Mash de Clutch! Don't mash de Clutch!

This past week has been quite the adventure!  First it made my soul so happy to be out at the village at the Ed Center and to see all of the precious students out there, both the ones I already knew and the ones I was meeting for the first time, but I will get to that more a little bit later.

Traffic on the way home

            One of my big adventures for the week was that I started driving!  First, the car I have here is a manual.  Second, I had some wonderful teachers in the states that taught me how to drive manual, but really I had only driven a manual about 6 times.  Oh how I wish I could have put a camera in the car and filmed my times driving with Alphonsus.  Alphonsus works for the ministry and I wish you all could meet him because he is the sweetest.  Everything about him makes me laugh in the best way possible.  You can only imagine now how our “driving lessons” went when he made me drive through town on the second day at rush hour… You might be picturing him saying something like “Anna, why are you mashing de clutch?! Quit mashing de clutch!.... Why aren’t you mashing the clutch? Mash de clutch! Mash de clutch! Why do you want de car to stop? Uh huh?”  And me just laughing because what the heck is mashing the clutch? And then you might picture me saying “Alphonsus, am I doing a good job?” To which Alphonsus would respond “Is de car moving? Yes. Then yes, you are doing a good job.”  However, by Wednesday he told me I didn’t even need him the car anymore, but I think I will keep him around just for a little while…  So that is my driving and I must say I am quite pleased with myself.

This is a picture overlooking the village from some rocks
we hiked up.

            Now, onto the village and the Ed Center.  I just love that place and those people.  The teachers blew me away.  Esther is so much more confident than when I first worked with her a year and a half ago.  Ayuba is a new teacher since I have been here.  He is pretty young with no formal teaching training, but Theresa did a great job training him because he is like a rockstar teacher.  God has definitely given him the gift of teaching.  Stephen, who is also new since I was here and is Esther’s husband, does a great job managing things and tutoring the older students.

            The students themselves were such an encouragement and a testament to God at work in this place.  A few students in particular have gone through such a transformation it is incredible.  One of the students is Israel, who was in my class that I helped teach during the internship I did in 2011.  Israel was the trouble-maker and was not too committed to his education when I first knew him.  In fact, I am pretty sure he was getting close to getting kicked out of the program because he had had so many violations to Ed Center Policies.  When I observed his classroom on Monday that boy was so attentive and was so happy to be there and was even reading to me!  I thought he must have been acting that way to impress me, but I talked with Esther and she told me he has totally changed! So praise the Lord for that and for the work that He is doing in all the students’ lives!

          The kids are always saying funny things.  One of the new students, Mary, tells me every day “Wow Auntie, you’re head is looking veeeerrry good!”  It cracks me up every time.

            This week we have two teams here, which is really exciting, but also means it will be a really busy week for us all!

Grace, Peace, and Love,

Anna

I have arrived and I have internet

Hello Everyone!

Me in front of Westminster Abbey during
my long, long layover!

I have arrived safely to Nigeria after 2 longs days of traveling, although I can’t complain because I did get to explore London a little bit!  Also funny side note... Coming back in to the airport after exploring London the security decided they needed to search my carry on.  In London, this means they have to take every single thing out of your carry on -- EVERY SINGLE THING literally!  This was the carry on the had all of my Education books and then random last minute things.  Sam (the security guard and my new BFF in London) took about 15 minutes for this process and he even helped me re-pack.  Good thing I left myself plenty of time to get to my flight!
I got here on Tuesday afternoon and I have been keeping pretty busy since I arrived (I did take some time Wednesday afternoon to just rest).  I have still been settling in to my room and getting it all set up so it feels more homey.  The Smarts have been so wonderful about taking care of me while I am settling in!

Grammie and me at the airport

            It has been so wonderful reconnecting with old friends and even making some new ones!  Right when we arrived close to home we found Emmanuel on the side of the road.  It was so wonderful to see an old friend; it made me feel like I had finally arrived.  That night I saw another friend and got to meet her new little baby (who is so precious, and you know that is saying a lot since I am not really a baby person)!

            Wednesday I got to visit Destiny’s Home with the Smarts, which is a children’s home in Jos that Back2Back partners with.  This home is new since I was here and so I was very excited to get to see it in person!  The director is wonderful and the children are so sweet.  The kids both live and go to school at the home.  I got to help Leah as she pulled a few of the kids in the youngest class for extra support.  I loved it because I felt right in my element teaching!  I also had dinner with another young, single woman who is here from the States doing mission work with a different organization.  It was really fun and she was such a gracious host.

lots of tears saying good-bye! I am sure the security guards
thought I was crazy!

            Thursday I got to go to the village just for a few hours and connect with the teachers at Igmin Kibe.  It was so so so wonderful to see Esther again and her husband who also now works for Back2Back.  I also got to meet the other teacher, Ayuba, who is new since I was here.  I got a chance to briefly look over the curriculum and even got to see some of my old students and meet a few of the new ones!  I was amazed how they looked the same, but older all at the same time.  Thursday Daniel took me all around town doing errands and immigration things.  It was such a busy day!

my room before I unpacked all of my things

           Today, after a lot of struggling and trouble shooting I finally got my internet and phone up and running!  It feels good now knowing that I can be somewhat connected to the outside world.  Now it is really late at night. I am still adjusting to the time difference I think. I haven't gone to bed before 2 am!

Until Later,

Anna