Thursday, June 29th

Today, our group went back to Remember the Poorest Community school. We put on a Vacation Bible School (VBS) for one hundred, five and six year olds. It was amazing to have one hundred children, five teachers, and eleven of us in a room about 10 by 20 feet room. In that small space, we sang songs with the children, put on a puppet skit, and then the Prodigal Son skit followed by decorating crowns. It was neat to see the children helping other children. One of the children helped another child with disabilities to decorate his crown and also made sure that his crown fitted well. This was the first time that a VBS had been held at RPC. The VBS program was well received by the teachers, the principal, and the children.

Once VBS was done, we broke into four separate groups. Steve and Alwin met with the director and founder, Samuel Assefa, and Alemu Checole, another staff member. During the meeting, they learned that RPC had just been given $7000 for orphans from MPPC via the Evangelical Church of Ethiopia. Alison, Jeff, Hope, and Bana did teacher training with 8-10 kindergarten teachers. They went over active learning strategies – zoo phonics, think pair share, read aloud think aloud, and visual posters. Noelle and Heidi tutored children at the office. They taught body parts by doing line conversations and songs. Brett, Christina, and Cindy went to a RPC class at a church. The 40-50 students were excited to sing Amharic songs. The team also taught body parts. In both tutoring classes, the students were very enthusiastic.

Then we drove back two hours to Addis. Our team met John and Anne Wheeler-Waddell, MPPC missionaries, for a delicious dinner at the Armenian Sports Club. It was great to have an opportunity to hear their story about the work God has called them to in Ethiopia.

Alwin Okuna
2nd Grade Teacher