Animals are our friends!

Hi everyone, apologies again for taking so long to update you all on what I’ve been up to-I can’t believe March in particular has gone so fast! I said in my last blog that we were about to start the lessons in primary with grade 1 (7 year old) students and they’re now finished after being really successful. Every week had a theme such as respecting animals or caring for trees and the team I work with performed a story about that weeks theme (characters were the themes-for instance a dog and a tree) which was then followed by an activity (a craft or we even planted trees!). The first one was about respecting animals and I think it’s the one the kids remembered best-kids would run around afterwards chanting ‘animals are our friends!’ which at least convinced me they’d got the point. The stuff in schools and preparing the team to go into schools takes up pretty much 3 days a week not including the actual writing of material so my week is pretty jam packed! I’ll be starting the next round of lessons for grade 3’s soon.
I’m also researching possible community projects for the team to initiate once the team have done an audit to see what community members feel they need most. There’s some exciting possibilities at the moment in the world of recycling-you might just think you put stuff in that box that goes out once every two weeks but here it has the potential to change people’s lives!
Next week I’m running an environmental holiday club with the team which is a bit scary but I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in for a whole week with kids. The theme is trees and friendship-it’s quite difficult to link the two, hopefully kids won’t notice how tenuous it is! It’s also been a bit difficult at times managing the environmental team (most of whom are older than me) so hopefully that end of things will run smoothly as well.
Life generally is going well-I’m really loving everyone I’m working with and just life in general in South Africa. Last week I went to a 21st of someone I’d never met before and was the only white person in a room of over 100 people-it was definitely a good experience but you do feel aware of yourself, particularly when, for some reason the cameraman keeps zooming in on your sometimes awkward looking face! I’m really trying to trying to engage with how to engage with the poverty I see around me-it’s easy to give money to feel better but then it’s also easy (at least for me) to come up with excuses like I don’t want to perpetuate the system. If you’ve got any answers please send them on a postcard to Oasis, PO BOX 533, Melville, 2109, South Africa! But I really feel that God’s getting me to think about it and what He wants me to do.
Hope this fills you all in on everything from the last two months-thanks for reading.
For those of you that pray:
For holiday club next week-that kids come and it’s well organised.
That the next round of lessons will come together well.
That I won’t avoid the stuff God wants me to learn about!
Hope you’re all well,
Steve