Looking Back, Looking Forward

Rain in January: hope for good harvests in 2011.

It’s already half way through January and I find myself feeling like somewhere along the way I blinked, and Christmas was gone. Maybe it was a combination of the busyness of work and the fact that our families weren’t around to celebrate with. Either way, it went by far too quickly. So in an effort (maybe a semi-conscious one on my part) to extend the “Christmas feeling”, I have extended my personal time allowance for listening to Christmas music for as long as I want until I have decided I’ve had enough. But that's not any Christmas music—only Handel’s Messiah--which when you think of it really is appropriate all year round.

Despite my hanging onto my bit of extended Christmas, time marches on and with it, all the scheduled activities of the New Year.

Students in Mozambique are busy registering for school and helping get school-yards tidied up so classes can begin.


Here is a peep at some of the facilities a local school uses as a classroom. We hope to be able to help this school build proper classrooms one day.

Ray showing how school benches are put together.

Dwight and I, hmm, I think we were sitting carefully trying not to topple off!

There is a serious shortage of classroom space in many rural schools, so we are very thankful for the beautiful building we have!

Getting ready for school also means meeting with "external students" (those boarding at other schools to attend higher grades) to coordinate their housing needs as well as do some forward planning with them.

Some of the external students.

This year, we are preparing materials and launching a new module for our adolescent students that deals with planning their futures and making wise personal decisions for their lives. Having been a homeschool mom, I'm very excited to see this coming together. Last week, Joao launched the first introductory session of “Preparing for Your Future” with these students.

Joao, the mission school's teachers (preschool - Gr. 5), and me.

Work on the mission school’s health clinic has made progress, thanks to Pindurai, Simon, and Ray and Julie who took a day to tackle it together.





All it needs now is glass in the windows and shelves and doors--which are being prepared in the woodshop (below).


Last photo: the Klipspringer (aka "Buddy") doing a bit of looking-forward of his own by practicing his bunting skills on my pillow. Whatever. Those future plans had just better not involve using those sharp new horns on my legs...buddy!

I better run for now. Got "to do" things waiting for me, people to see, and at the end of the day, some great Christmas music to listen to :)

ttyl!

PS: Date stamped photos: photo credit to Julie.