Upendo Students Go To the Head of the Class
The kids are all doing well in school. Pray for the older kids as they go through a period of testing in May before the end of the school year in July. These tests will determine what high schools they qualify for. Wedson, Luke, Lawrence, Matteo, Maria, Big Gift are all number one in their class! In many of classrooms, the top scoring kids are all from Upendo! It’s a testimony to the work being done by our on-site Malawian tutors that you help support – Shekinah, Wisdom and Janie! Thank you everyone!
Having missionaries visit from America is also a big reason why the children excel in school. One of our most important tasks (besides sharing the love of Jesus) is helping everyone to improve their English – speaking, reading, writing, and comprehension. Having a good command of English is an important step towards college and employment. Any kind of interaction with native English speakers is helpful, including playing games, learning a craft or skill, or just asking questions or giving directions.
This year Candy Giles organized a Learning and Activity Center in the church building up the road from the orphanage. We were blessed to have materials donated by some ESOL (English as a Second Language) teachers in Rochester, NY. The kids were extremely helpful as we lugged everything up to the church every afternoon. They never let us carry anything!
We all sat on rugs on the floor rather than tables and that actually worked great. (The kids are used to sitting on the ground!) It was thrilling to watch them voluntarily pick up an English book or flashcards or do write-on/wipe-off math or letters over and over. It was a great treat for them. Some of the older kids started spontaneously “teaching” younger kids, which was good for both the “teacher” and the students.
The children had a chance to use manipulatives like Legos for the first time. They would play and create as long as we let them, and they also loved jigsaw puzzles. They don’t have their own crayons or coloring books so all ages loved to get one page to color with crayons or markers. The older children learned games like Othello and Racko (math skills!)
During the time that the Finney students visited Upendo, there were some extra helpers for the Learning Center. Jody Calder introduced a new and better way to set up learning stations.
After the February team left, missionary Tom Johnston came and continued working with the kids, helping our tutors by reviewing the children’s homework and test scores and covering areas where they are weak. In the future we want to provide more resources and support to our tutors so they can make sure all our students are succeeding to the best of their abilities.
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