It's Friday, and I am unbelievably blessed...

For those of you that are unaware, Macy and I are teaching the 'Top Nursery' class. We teach from 8am to 1pm with a thirty minute break in between, at which time we all take tea. I have taken on the math portion of the class and Mace is teaching English (and extraordinarily well, you should know).  We are at the end of our third week teaching and we have absolutely loved it thus far! We have twenty students, all between the ages 9 and 12. (All the students have been placed at levels according to their understanding of the material, not necessarily their age. For instance, we have a fifteen year-old boy in P:1, which is first grade level. It's sad, but necessary!)

Well, today Macy went to Gulu with the Conally's (the new family that moved here at the beginning of May) and I took over our class for the morning. And really all this entry is about is the experience that I encountered this morning...

I walked to the school at 7:50 this morning to prepare a few things before class began. As I opened the door to the class room, all of our twenty students were dispersed in the class room with their eyes closed and some with extended hands, while one of the sweetest girls to exist-- Fiona-- stood at the front of the room and led the class in worship. No adult was in the room, no exciting song was being sung...it was just an old praise song that they knew. Every kid was singing in perfect harmony (something that I believe is just a natural gift for Africans....not once have I heard an African sing out of harmony!). Even as I entered the room no one looked up, everyone was so engaged in with the Lord it was unreal! I walked to the back of the room and joined in as quietly as I could and recognized how tangible the presence of God was in our classroom! After the song finished they all burst out into passionate, independent prayers that proclaimed so much trust in their friend, Jesus! As they prayed allowed I heard several different voices praying for Macy and I, others were praying for Restoration Gateway as a whole and the mom's of their houses!

Honestly, as I stood in the back I just started laughing to myself...overwhelmed with joy! I thought about how ridiculous it is that we concern ourselves so much with experiencing things in religion, elevating ourselves in our knowledge and even comparing our closest friends' walks with Jesus versus our own! And then there are the children. The children of God. The ones who Jesus himself told us to be like in faith. I was laughing because these children, who are just now learning English, are standing in this room...on their own accord... praising their sweet Jesus in English! Everything was so unbelievably simple! Their vocabulary is small, there were no instruments to create the atmosphere....only their hearts were there and their sweet voices as an offering of themselves in humble submission to their Savior, the only Father they have ever truly known. And the presence of God was SO there!

How simple it can be and how complicated we make it on our own.
Hope you are blessed by this in the way I was, have a great weekend!

Mb