First Day of School!!


I am sitting in my office all alone. There is a fairly strong breeze coming through to the point that I have to be careful my papers don’t fly away, and I hear nothing. No screaming, no whining, not even any giggles. It seems like so long since I have had a moment like this that I don’t even know what to do, and so I cleaned out some of my desk and now I write.

The Village of Hope kids have been off school for a record breaking 4 months.  Four months of vacation is not necessarily a good thing when you have 65 children, most of which are teenagers, to keep busy.  To say the least it has been a very long and exhausting four months. We did have a fun filled summer though! Trips to the beach, Fort Jacques, St. Marc and the National Museum as well as a week of Crazy Games and a Miss Mission of Hope pageant. A number of our teens worked as interpreters this summer, and another group of kids volunteered every day with VBS. Plus we had tons of other activities; macramé, baneko (creating beautiful pictures with cut banana leaves) and lots of other fun games and then BAM! Just like that it’s finished. It’s time to get back to a regular routine, but it’s been so long I don’t even remember what a regular routine looks like!
 

Today we sent 61 children to school. 61 backpacks filled with dozens of books, pencil cases carefully filled, frilly socks, brand new shiny black shoes, fancy ribbons, barrettes and bobbles for the girls hair and of course 2 hand-sewn uniforms for each child. We have been working towards this day since the end of June, and that is not an exaggeration! I have been blessed with an AMAZING assistant who did a great job doing all the purchasing. This year we have 5 kindergarten students, two of which are Hannah and Jeremiah (in the middle), the babies we got when they were 5 days old just a few years ago. They are growing up so quickly!


We also have 29 primary students, two of which are Rose Myrtha and Ochanel. Ochanel is 17 has never been to school, so today is a pretty big day in his life! (He looks much younger as he has some medical issues that have stunted his growth).


We also have 28 high school kids this year! 

There will be LOTS of studying happening this year, as almost one third  (19 total) of our kids will be writing government exams this year, which is a big deal. If they don’t pass the exam they cannot move on to their next grade. You write government exams at the end of 6th grade, 9th grade, Rhetho (11th grade) and Philo (12th grade). We don’t have any kids in grade 12 this year, but we do have 2 in grade 11. It is really exciting to see them getting so close to finishing school.

Some of our older kids have Facebook accounts and this morning one of our boys wrote on his page that he was so excited for the first day of school because he "loves education". It’s pretty amazing when a teenager can see how blessed he is in this country to be able to receive an education.

Please be praying for our kids as they get back into the swing of things, and for our staff as we all recover from summer. Here’s to an amazing year of school. I better run, I need to start planning for this years Christmas party!

Peace, love and shiny new shoes,

Rachel


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