Friday, August 27, 2010

We’ve been given lemons and we’ve made some awesome lemonade!

The past week has been testing to say the least! All government workers have been on an indefinite strike for a week now, with no end in site. To say that this is disruptive to the children is an understatement. This is only worsened when the Garden Village teachers have actually been at school, but have told the children not to come and have been seen standing at the school gate asking them to leave – strike policy is “no work, no pay”, technically these teachers are at their place of work! Our Camp Sonshine teacher, “Teacher Liz,” as the children refer to her has chosen to look beyond the problems (which are many) and has seen the opportunity in doing things, with the few children who have managed to sneak into the school, that she would not usually be able to do. On the first day Liz and her fantastic volunteers had a spontaneous puppet making day, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all who were there (about 20 kids from grade R-7). In fact, they enjoyed it so much that the following day there were about 30 kids at school! We were able to get to know children we don’t usually have the opportunity to interact with and were able to witness the kindness and caring nature of the older children as they ably assisted younger children with cutting our ears, sticking on eyes and making their puppets “speak”.

Our after school program has also been a little different, we have welcomed all children of all ages, most of whom are thoroughly bored and we know that generally boredom does not lead to good things in the lives of these kids. Yesterday we had a fantastic day weeding, planting and watering the little garden in the middle of the school grounds. No on seems to take care of this garden so our kids got to work. They honestly were so incredibly helpful and did a FANTASTIC job! The garden has been totally transformed and we look forward to the beautiful flower that spring will bring. The children were extremely proud of their achievements! We filled 8 black bags with weeds!

I truly feel that through circumstance we have no control over and cannot plan for we are given the opportunity to stand out and be different. In the programs that we run, one of our aims is always to make kids, staff, the community and anyone we come into contact with feel different to how others make them feel. It is sad that this is the case, but this is the reality in most of these children’s lives. Most of these children are not made to feel loved, accepted, special or valued at home or at school. We think that this is how kids should feel all the time. In times like these we have such an opportunity to act differently to those around us. We can choose to complain about the circumstances, the lack of communication and the inefficiency; all which we would be totally justified doing. Or we can behave in a way in which we feel Jesus has called us to and in doing so be the light and salt in this community. I know that this is not my natural reaction, it is a choice. I am so proud of the Camp Sonshine Africa team who has made this choice. I know that we have used this opportunity well!

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