The First Week

“Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.” The words came wafting down the breezes from Mango Hall, where Sarah and Jason were teaching bible memory class. Esther and Mary were concentrating on their math problems for the day, while Destiny and Hannah prepared their dollies for a trip to “go shopping”. Contentment and peace flooded my heart. God is so good to us.Mango hall, which is what we are calling our newly rebuilt classroom/dorm building was actually finished enough to use on the first day of school. That in itself is a miracle of no small proportion. It is bigger and nicer than the one that was destroyed by the wayward mango tree. The work continues on it, since the students decided to make it much bigger, in order to have individual rooms for the boys to sleep in, along with a room for Jason. I did not believe that rebuilding was at all possible until next year, but it is nearly finished already.One of the things that absolutely amaze me is how good God was to give us a blueprint for how to run a school. When I studied years ago what God had to say about it, I never dreamed that I would be given the chance to try it out. But I can tell you that it works, and it works really well.  We have done our best to follow the guidelines that we have been given, and it is so fun to see how smoothly things are going.We have 18 students this year. Our days begin before the crack of dawn and go until well after dark. We have a full work/study program, so it keeps us hopping all the time. By Friday, we are all pretty much worn out and really looking forward to Sabbath.All three of us are teaching all day long, and I am also trying to take care of my little ones while teaching. The other day, I was busily teaching math class, while Destiny played behind the blackboard, when all of the sudden it came crashing down.(There is a raised platform behind the blackboard)  I grabbed the board before it could go down through the incomplete floor, but I could not see what was happening on the other side of it. My students did though. I never saw anyone move so fast before! They could see that Destiny had fallen with the board, and was about to fall through the floor. They dove under the blackboard and saved her from a nasty fall. She was terrified, but not very hurt. When I finished class for the day and came back to the house, Destiny wanted to talk about what had happened. She told me that it really scared her, but that Saw James grabbed her so she didn't fall to the ground. I asked her if she had thanked Jesus and Saw James for saving her. She immediately turned and ran to find Saw James, yelling “Thank you, thank you!” as she ran.You might be wondering why I only mention Jason, Sarah, and me. Well, we have three schools that we are supporting. Travis’ school does not have enough teachers, and Travis was trying to take care of everything all by himself. Let me assure you, that is not possible. So, Roy decided to go down and teach at Travis’ school until more help arrives. (A volunteer is planning to go there in January)  Roy is sorely missed, but that seems to be the way things are over here since there is more work than we can possibly do.What we do have is the precious promise that as our day, so will our strength be. It also makes me understand more clearly why we are to pray that God would send forth laborers.