New Friends:)

New Kids

The kids have been back in school for almost a month now and they’re finally starting to get into the swing of things again. 15 new kids have come to live at the Center for the new school year. Most of them are in second and third grade but there are a few older ones as well. Adding 15 kids to a family of 60 is actually a pretty big adjustment. There are a lot of things to get used to at the Center. New classes, new rules, new books and a whole lot of new faces, but the new kids are making friends with the ones that have been there for a while and it is working out well.






Heights Church from Arizona

Heights Church sent a team of ten hardworking men and women to help finish up the new boys dorm. They painted shutters, windows and walls. They moved sand, rock and dirt. They laid cement and cut hardwood boards with nothing but a handsaw and they did it all with a smile on their faces. Gina from southern California also joined in the fun and together they all showed great compassion by serving in a practical way.

In the middle of all their hard work and sweat they found some time to play with the kids and have fun too. Volleyball and soccer are always a big hit for the kids, but the team also brought face-paint, cards, Rubik’s cubes, sparklers, crazy hats, glow sticks and best of all s’mores! It was like a carnival at some points and of course the kids ate up all the attention and fun times. Relationships were started and new friends were made. Of course everyone was very sad to see them go but we’re all hoping they’ll be back again someday soon.

SUMMER UPDATE:)

NEW LEARNING CENTER

We’ve been working on getting a learning center in town ready for quite awhile now. There is still work to be done on the place but we decided to run a summer English program for the past two months to test it out. The summer interns, Tim Van Hal and Christine Law, joined forces with the staff and kids from the Kracheh Children’s Center to teach three different levels of English. We limited the number of students to only 30 but we had so many students asking to learn that we had a couple of the older kids from the Children’s Center teach a class all on their own.
Kids had fun learning, relationships were built and we have people calling us all the time asking when the next sign up is for more classes. At this point we’re hoping to continue in October when the kids are back in school although it will be more of a challenge with fewer people around to teach. We are also getting requests to learn computer which we hope to teach in the near future. We’ve been working on creating a computer lab but currently only have enough to teach the kids that we already have at the Center.
Summer Kids Camp






SUMMER KIDS CAMP

For the past four weeks the mornings at the Children’s Center have been filled with summer camp fun for sixth grade and down. Children from the village came and joined the kids at the Center to learn, sing songs, play games and do arts and crafts. Over 80 kids attended. Some of the older ones had the opportunity to be leaders and they all got to practice working together. Everyone had fun and hopefully learned something in the process.









NEW BOYS HOUSE

The Children’s Center continues to expand with the addition of another boys house. All of the boys at the Center have been crowded into one house and it is pretty tight sleeping and living quarters. The new house will give everyone a bit more space as well as make room for more students. A construction team has been working hard all summer and the house is going up quickly.

KRACHEH

Summer vacation is here and what better way to spend it than going to summer school? The older kids are out of school for the summer so we hired two high school teachers to come to the Center and teach five days a week. From 7 a.m. until 11 a.m. the kids are getting a head start in math, chemistry and language studies. They’re working hard and hopefully learning enough to give them a better understanding of the next year’s curriculum.

We also have two more English speakers that have come to help teach the kids for the summer. So there are extra English and reading classes for the kids in the morning and afternoon. They’re also getting coaching in piano and trombone. The kids enjoy having new people around to learn with and play with.


NEW SCHOOL

We’ve been working on getting a house in town ready to open up as a school for anyone to come and learn at. For the past year people have been coming and asking us if they can learn English and computer with us but we haven’t been ready. We’ve finally opened it up for a test run. We’re teaching three different levels of English for six weeks for free. We told the kids at the Center that we especially wanted to help their friends who wanted to learn English but were too poor to pay for classes. We limited the number of students to 30 because of classroom size.
Classes have been going since July 13th and we’ve had to turn away over 20 kids because the classes were too full. Some of the kids from the Center are helping to teach and making new friends while they’re at it. It is going well and people are having fun!





COMING UP...

In August we’re going to be running a four-week summer camp for the younger kids and their friends. It will be in the mornings and we’re hoping to give them one of the most exciting summers of their lives!