Putting it on paper and celebrating

We drew quite the crowds as we went to deliver monthly food supplies to orphan homes in surrounding communities this week. Well, we always seem to draw crowds since we are rather an oddity. I’m sure what added to the usual attraction this week was the fact that we brought bright, colourful crayons and dazzling stickers for the orphan children to make personalized bookmarks with. It was tricky keeping the bookmark papers clean since much of life here happens close to the dirt, but then, what’s a dirt smudge or two, eh? They thoroughly enjoyed the chance to do some artwork which gave me some great ideas for follow-up activities.
Karen and Kim cutting out and preparing the bookmarks for the kids.

One of the events we celebrated this week was (finally) delivering the Perkins Brailler to Mateus. Here he is, putting his own unique signature on his “proof of ownership” paper.

Using this method to write is quite the time-consuming, laborious process, and I’m sure the machine will be a much quicker way for him to take notes at school. Let’s just say he’s a pretty happy chappy right now :)

Others putting pen to paper this week were the pastors who came to attend one of several annual intensive seminars that we conduct here at the mission. These men come from near and far to receive training and training materials which they then return to their areas with and use to mentor other church leaders. We had a fairly full-house this time around, and our camp tents were filled to capacity. Dwight, Steve, Francois and Joao held classes in various places around the mission including under a temporarily suspended tarp outside the camp kitchen. Needless to say, we’re quite anxious for the day when these seminars can be held in the proposed training center!
Steve teaching his class with Dwight interpreting into Portuguese.

This class was held in the mission office.
For my session on preventive health, I used smooth stones from the river bed and some decorative marbles to demonstrate the adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. It was great fun.
This class took place under the makeshift tarp by the camp kitchen. Here’s Kim, my personal pharmacist—doing up packets of Tylenol, vitamins, etc. for the pastors this week. And who should be overseeing the whole operation, but Les, on her head! (Les may be re-named “Leslie” since Kim sort of figures the chameleon is a she rather than a he.)

Today, we took a brief break from our busy schedule to go celebrate Dwight’s birthday (it’s a bit early—but we will all be travelling next week). Tomorrow, the graduation ceremony will be held for those pastors who have now completed their studies after several years of diligent work. It will be a fine day, and we are expecting some of our local governmental VIP’s to join in our festivities. There are a few more very busy days in store for us next week, then we head to the beach with our family to catch a bit of R & R. We’ll be there on Dwight’s actual birthday, so there is more celebration in store! The sticker Kim placed on Mushu’s head said it quite well...Party on. :)