Hey guys! Sorry for being MIA these past few weeks. Life here at Asha Kiran is busy but wonderfully fulfilling. Every weekday, we get up and have breakfast with Rita or on some days we go to the cafeteria to eat with the hostel kids at 7:30pm (The hostel kids are those living at the school because their home is far away from Bangalore/out of state). School starts at 8:15am and ends at 1:15pm. We eat lunch with the kids at 1:30pm and then help them with homework until 2:30. After that we have a break until 4pm when we go back to the courtyard to play outdoor games with the kids, and mind you it is hard playing football and cricket in kurtas and salwars (which are long dress shirts and large pants). At 5pm we have tea time, tutoring, and devotions until 7:30pm when we go have dinner with Rita and Prem.
The way the school is designed is that preschool has sections A – D with A being new younger students or those that need the most help and attention from the teachers. The students take certain tests to see if they will be promoted to the next class. If they do not pass, they remain in the same class again until they are ready to move on. The ages of the children can range from 5 years old to 10 years old in the preschool. Once they pass preschool, they move either to VTC or to class A1 and so on.
During school Hannah, Marlena, and I each have the opportunity to work in different areas of the school. Hannah works in the Vocational Training Center (VTC) where she works with the older students in teaching practical life skills such as vegetable cutting, cooking classes, sorting, art, and shopping skills. Marlena gets to work with both the art teacher every Tuesday and Thursday, and in preschool B on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Also, if a teacher is sick, Marlena is the one to call! Filling in for the teachers gives her more of an opportunity to interact with almost every student in the school which is really awesome. I get to work one on one with a little boy from preschool in section A. Recently he’s come down with a case of the chicken pox so for right now I’m working with another little boy in preschool D.
Each child is so unique and beautiful that you can’t help but love them. One of the most wonderful things about working with the children is finding what they love to do and what their strengths are. We can see their confidence in themselves grow when they accomplish assignments. It’s beautiful and it makes every step or bump in the road worth it for that moment of success.
On the weekends we rest at home, or we go out into town with Prem and Rita’s niece, Ana who is visiting. We rode a rickshaw for the first time and Ana took us to the ice cream shop that was literal heaven on earth. It was about 120 rupees (about $2) for a freaking huge sundae and I almost died of happiness. This last weekend we got to go visit a city called Mysore. We went to Mysore Palace. It was huge. We went to the Mysore zoo and then after we went to the Brindavan Gardens. It was really fun, but also a little overwhelming because people kept coming up to us and asking what country we were from. They were confused as to why Marlena was hanging out with a bunch of Asians I guess? They also asked to take photos with us. We said no. I also don’t understand why they wanted photos. We got home late and then went to bed. We go to church every Sunday with Prem and Rita and the hostel kids.
Some things we would like to have prayer for is:
1. Energy because we often feel very emotionally and physically drained at the end of the day.
2. Patience when working with the children because sometimes it can get frustrating with communication barriers and learning how to properly interact with each individual student and their different behaviors.
3. For health for the children, the teachers, and us since there seems to be a virus going around lately. Also some of the hostel kids have lice and we’d really love to have that not make its way into our hair.
4. Finally, we really want to make Jesus real for the kids here. Most of the students are Hindu and we want to present Jesus in a way that is outside of just saying the Lord’s Prayer every day and listening to devotions. We want them to pursue a relationship with Him so prayer for the words and the boldness in sharing would be appreciated.
We’re excited to see what else God has in store for us here! You guys are great and your support means the world to us! We’ll hopefully post again soon.
Jenny – Team India