Week 6: Grade 1 Sub & Pizza Night

Bridget, one of the Grade 1 students and Bethesda kids.

The Grade 1 class holding up on their get well soon card, which had butterflies on them.

Greetings from Bethesda!

In terms of my involvement at the school, this was probably my busiest week as I substituted for the first grade all week as their teacher was out with a respiratory illness. It was a lot of work and pretty tiring, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. I am very grateful for the hard work that the Grade 2 teacher, Miss de Clerq, who had to scramble and organize the materials for me when I was going to be teaching since I had no knowledge of the curriculum. I also had some fun times putting on a pizza party for the families on Friday, but I’ll elaborate on that more later. Additionally, I was able to do a lot of shopping for souvenirs for friends and family on Saturday. But first things first: Happy Father’s Day to my dad, Jim Lehe! For the second consecutive year, I’ve managed to be away from home on Father’s Day, but hopefully I can make up for my lack of presence with an abundance of presents :) But in all seriousness, I am grateful for his influence in my life and hope to one day have his work ethic. I know how hard he works because when I work with him, frankly I can’t keep up. I owe a lot to him in how I have turned out. In addition to this, I have been blessed to observe some great fathers here at Bethesda in Fritz, George, Peter, Jack, and Jones. Not only do these men work full time jobs, but many of them are pastors of their churches and they take a very active role in instructing their children in the Lord. They have all followed God here and adopted several children into their families and are giving them a loving home and showing them God’s love constantly. However, I was reminded in church this morning that we have the greatest father we could ever imagine or hope for in God the Father. Even though all of the men I have mentioned are great men, they cannot promise to always be there for their children, but God can. As it says in Deuteronomy 31:6 “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” So today, I thank God for my earthly father, the great examples of fathers here at Bethesda, and my Heavenly Father.

            Looking back on this week in the school, it certainly wasn’t quite what I expected, but it went very well and no, I didn’t make the first graders cry…. too much. Their classroom is adjacent to the grade 4 room and since the upper grades of the school were taking exams, I was pretty vigilant about talking out of turn and the students responded very well to these demands. It also helps that I have gotten to know the students much better now and know how to respond to them more effectively. For example, one girl tends to be a bit dramatic at times and I have learned to recognize her fake crying for attention and her real crying, which are few and far between. I am also blessed that there are only ten students and they are all very well behaved. Nonetheless, I still find myself losing my patience from time to time, which is something I clearly need help in and need to work on. Some of the highlights of the week included making “Get well soon” cards on Thursday for their teacher and Father’s Day cards on Friday. Both of them implemented a limited amount of writing for the students. I would take some ideas from the students and write them on the board so they could get the spelling and everything correct. I thought it was cool how one of the most popular choices was “May the Good Lord bless you.” This was also popular on Friday for the Father’s Day choices. The Father’s Day cards were basically a handwriting worksheet with “Thank you for” as a writing prompt and the things that the kids were thankful for were pretty hilarious. One girl’s paper read “Thank you for buying me toys. Thank you for buying me shoes. Thank you for buying me clothes.” Of course, my personal favorite was by one of the boys. He wrote “Thank you for everything you do for me. Thank you for buying me pizza. Thank you for buying me KFC & McDonalds.” To add the hilarity, he actually spelled KFC “KeFeSe” before I corrected him. Another highlight for me is when I get to read to the class. One of the books I read this week was Who is the Beast? by Keith Baker, which had a repeated line “The beast, the beast” at the start of every other page. I would add a little bit of a suspenseful and scary voice and the kids loved it even though they jumped each time I read it. They are a lot of fun and I know that I will miss them all immensely.

            So I had this idea a little while back that I would try to get pizza for all of the families at Bethesda as a way of saying thank you for welcoming me and everything that they all have done for me. I set up everything to do this on Friday night and we made the order. It was all looking good until we went to pick up the order. The pizza place here puts two normal sized pizzas in a large box so when we order 14 large pizzas, we were meaning 28 pizzas. But the pizza place thought we only wanted 14 pizzas all together, which meant only about two pieces per person. I was really bummed out by this and I unfortunately let it ruin my evening and time of fellowship. Looking back, I think I had good original intentions, but I was definitely looking at it as a way to glorify myself and this definitely reminded me of how fragile and pathetic my glory is. After the pizza time, the guys and I watched The Dark Knight Rises and once again, I fell asleep for most of the movie.

            On Saturday, I went shopping with Tonya and Heather for souvenirs and gifts for friends and family back home. It was a lot of fun and I got some really cool things, but I am always so indecisive since the only person I can effectively buy things for (other than myself) is my mom. Thank goodness that Tonya has a lot of patience! I just hope everything I bought can fit in my suitcase.

            In conclusion, it was a pretty good last full week at Bethesda. It’s weird to think as each day passes that “This is my last [insert day of the week] here.” While I am starting to look forward to going home, I know that I will miss Bethesda and everyone here so much and will probably kick myself for not doing more things with the kids here. Either way, one of my concerns is that I may fall into the mentality of “This is my last week, so that doesn’t really matter.” One of my prayer requests is that I would avoid this temptation and just finish strong. Another one would be for Tonya’s car to be fixed soon and that if it is repaired while she’s in the States, that it would be repaired properly. Lastly, I would ask for prayer for safe travels as Tonya, Heather, and I leave this Friday. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone, but I am thankful for how good has worked in me and given me the opportunity to grow and serve. As always, thanks for reading and have a great day!

In Christ,

Dan Lehe

Week Five and Still Alive:)

I didn't take a lot of pictures this week, but here's some pictures of me with the Sithole children. Here, I am sitting with Junia & Nthando.

Thabiso, who is in Grade 2

Thembi, who is in Grade 4

Greetings from Bethesda!

            Another week has passed here, seemingly faster than the one before it. Before I know it, it will be June 21^st and I’ll be flying home, but there’s still a lot to happen between now and then. This past week saw the Faith BBC & BBC team leave on Thursday afternoon. Although I only joined them on the tail end of their journey across South Africa, I am really glad they came and that I was able to make friends with my brothers and sisters in Christ who reside across America and praise the Lord that they me it home safely. This goodbye was perhaps the hardest of any of the teams that have come here during my stay. However, I am sure that it not be as difficult compared to the goodbye I’ll have to make on the 21^st, but I’m not even going to think about that for now. Things at the school have been going well with some fun times and funny happenings. I also went to an enormous shopping mall in Pretoria on Saturday and just got back from a braai this afternoon. All in all, it was a good week.

            At school, I finished up my remaining lessons in the social studies and natural science. Friday afternoon was a bit of a mad rush to hand back homework assignments and trying to hunt down students who had not turned in their homework. With their exams next week, I wanted to be sure to return their assignments so they could use them to study. It was a little frustrating at the number of students who did not turn in assignments and how I could see that it simply decimated their total grade, but there was nothing I could do about that. As I told last week, I had quite the experience substituting for the Grade 1 class. This past Tuesday, I subbed for their teacher from about 9:30 until the end of the day and I had a much smoother time and I am happy to report that there were many fewer tears. I was much more laid back this time around and used the school’s peg system much more effectively. While more of the kids “moved their peg,” I avoided the tears this time and it was a lot more enjoyable as well. Some of the other highlights of my week included a brief but funny conversation I had with Rebaone, a boy in the 6^th grade who is one of the biggest characters in the school. He asked if I was going to be coming back for their third term. When I informed him that I would be going home after this term finished, he said “No, sir. You must stay.” When I said that I’d want to see my family, his response was “Oh, sir, you can Skype them. You do already, right?” When I told him that I had not Skyped them since I’ve been here, he said “Oh, sir! You must Skype them!” I’m sure that my mom would agree with him:) Some of the other highlights include the review games we have played, Zoink and another game that was a combination of jeopardy and dodge ball with a soft foam ball. Both of these games were a lot of fun and very popular with the students. I hope I can bring these games into my future classroom. Another funny moment was one that was actually relayed to me by Tonya about Rudy, one of the sixth grade boys who lives at Bethesda and whom I truly regard as a friend. He asked Tonya about my Monster Rehab, an energy drink that I enjoy and it is my caffeine source. When Tonya told him that it was like a sports drink with caffeine, his next question was “So, does it have alcohol in it?” Tonya told him that it did not and I guess he was very relieved to hear that.

            On Wednesday night, I had dinner with my next door neighbors, the Sitholes and several team members. George and Florah are a remarkable couple and they have always been so kind to me as their neighbor. It was a lot of fun and I hope we didn’t get their kids too crazy before their bedtime. Friday night was a continuation of the Batman movies from the previous Friday. Since the camp was not going on this time, all of the teenage guys (and those close to that age, with parental permission of course) joined in and we watched The Dark Knight in the team center. Counting myself, there were ten guys total and they really enjoyed the movie. I however followed in the footsteps of my dad and fell asleep for a good deal of the movie. I guess I was the old man of the group so it was fitting that I got a 45 minute nap in during that time. But it was a great time nonetheless.

            Saturday was quite the day for me. I had asked Tonya if it were possible for me to get a haircut because it was getting pretty long and I was starting to resemble my dad (inside joke:) Sorry, Dad!). She, Heather, and Melissa were planning to go to Pretoria to a market on Saturday and they could just drop me off at the mall for several hours. This mall was absolutely huge! Other than the Mall of America in Minneapolis, I have never been to a larger shopping mall. I got my hair cut at this place that I think only black people went to because I was the only white person in there. But they gave me tea & biscuits and my hair was shampooed and everything, which I am certainly not used to. The guy who cut my hair was named Felix and he was from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One thing I noticed about him was that he had a small swastika tattooed on his forearm, which was really perplexing, but I wasn’t about to ask about it. I know the swastika was not exclusively used by the Nazis, but I still found it odd nonetheless. For lunch, I saw that they had a KFC, which I couldn’t pass up. But they had a South African chicken restaurant, Licken Chicken, nearby. So I got popcorn chicken from both places, pulled out my iPod, played one of my favorite songs, “Chicken Fried” by Zac Brown Band, and enjoyed my meal. And quite frankly, it was no contest – KFC was much better. While the mall was quite impressive, at the end of the day, I only spent money on my haircut and food and drinks. But I couldn’t help think of the enormous gap between the luxuries of this mall and some of tin shacks I have seen all over the countryside. I know these differences exist in the US, but I was just struck by the contrast.

            In closing, I would to ask for prayer on several matters. First, the students in grades 4-7 are taking exams this week. Historically, they haven’t always done well, so I would ask for prayer that they would prepare as well as they can and trust in the Lord and have no anxiety while taking the tests. Secondly, the Mixons are heading back to the states on Tuesday so prayer for their safety would be very much appreciated. Additionally, both of the vehicle repairs (Tonya’s & the Mixons’) are still ongoing and it certainly appears that neither will be done before everyone leaves for the states. Finally, I would ask for prayer wisdom in determining what God has in mind for me after graduation. It’s been on my mind a lot of late, but I just want to trust God wherever he takes me and that I would have the faith and strength to follow Him. I would also ask for strength to finish strong here at Bethesda. As it says in Acts 20:24 “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” While my course and ministry should not end as I leave Bethesda, I do not want to slack off and become complacent in my remaining days here. As always, thanks for reading and thank you for your prayers! Have a good one!

In Christ,

Dan Lehe

PS: I hope my awesome sister, Jessica Taylor, had a great birthday yesterday! Miss you, Jess!

Week 4: Making First Graders Cry Like None Other

One of the more fun jobs for the visiting team this week: getting to burn the tall, dry grass. This controlled burning prevents the risk of accidental and much more dangerous fires during the dry winter.

On the way to Tonya & Heather's house, we spotted 11 giraffes! There's only six in this shot, but it was incredible!

Greetings from Bethesda!

I apologize for my delay in posting, although I highly doubt that anyone was chomping at the bit to read my update. My time here is starting to fly by and it is hard to fathom that I have been here over a month now. Nonetheless, I am having a great time here. As I last reported, the Purdue team departed last Sunday, but already another team has arrived. This team is composed of students from Faith Baptist Bible College in Iowa and Baptist Bible College in Pennsylvania and there are 21 people total. These people have been so fun and welcoming to me. Their impact at Bethesda has been nothing short of amazing thus far, but I will tell more about that later. My time in the classroom has been an adventure once again as the title suggests and I am so grateful that I am getting this experience now before my student teaching otherwise I am afraid that I might not do so well. Regardless, I am glad to be serving in the school and in the other various ways that I am employed. I hope and pray that God will continue to stretch me while I am here and that I will not be comfortable with a “good enough” mentality when I serve.

                As I have mentioned before, I am on a rotation where I spend time in almost every grade and am teaching lessons for the older grades. This week, I substitute taught for the Grade 1 teacher on Thursday. I was initially really excited about this opportunity as these students have always enjoyed my presence in the classroom. From the start, I did my best to emphasize that I would be the teacher for the day and that they were to give me the same respect that they give Mrs. Matjeni. Unfortunately, they still thought of me as the fun teacher, which was a gift and a curse simultaneously. Now as a whole and on an individual basis, they are a great class and I look forward to going back into their classroom. But they were very hyper and hard to keep on track in the morning. When we were working on spelling, one of the girls that has always been excited to see me would not stop interrupting me. In hindsight, I probably should have made her “move a peg,” the school’s behavior management/discipline system. Instead, I gave a bit more grace than I should have before I addressed her rather sternly in front of the class. She then more or less shut down until after the lunch time. Consoling her seemed to only make things worse, but I am happy to report that she has warmed up to me once again. Before the first break, we went to line up and all of a sudden, I had another crier. This girl had been shoved by another girl. I actually handled this situation correctly: I asked the other girl if she had shoved her on purpose and indeed, she had. I had her apologize and ask for forgiveness per the school’s procedure. After all of this, I then told her that she had to move” down a peg.” And that’s when she starting bawling. I consoled a little bit, but reminded her that she indeed had deserved to have her peg moved. I had two other criers before the day was out. One girl who said her stomach was bothering her (but was miraculously healed after lunch) and then a boy who forgot his library book at home so he was not going to be able to check out a new one. Interestingly with him, when I informed him that he could not check out a new book, he took the bad news like a champ. But when we returned to class and resumed the math lesson, he had his head down and I saw some tears whenever he raised his head. He’s such a soft spoken little guy that I had to ask another student to come over and interpret what he was saying. When the day was done, five students or half the class had been in tears at some point during the day. While I am sure that part of my troubles are typical of any substitute teacher, I know that I could have handled many things differently and with more wisdom. It was certainly a learning experience for me and while it was not at all enjoyable at the time, I know that it will help me in the long run as a teacher.

               

                Part of the reason I was delayed in getting my blog was the arrival of the team from Faith & BBC on Thursday night. However, I have really enjoyed spending time with them and serving them over the weekend. Since Thursday night, they have been a lot of fun and very friendly to me as I was introduced to them all in a very funny way. John Mixon was introducing the Bethesda staff that was present on Thursday night and when he introduced me, he asked what I had done that day, knowing that I had substituted for the 1^st grade. After I recounted my exploits of the day and the “awwwe”s had subsided, Tonya goes “And tell them how many cried.” I reluctantly answered “5… out of the 10.” Everyone had a good laugh and so now it’s a bit of a recurring joke “Did you make the kids cry today?” Starting Saturday morning, they put on a camp for the teens of Bethesda on leadership and I sat in on a couple of their messages. I must say that they did an incredible job and there are a lot of incredible young men and women on this team. I have also joined them for their evening worship and reflection time. The worship has been particularly great for me as I am reminded with truths such as “All I Have is Christ” amongst many other fantastic worship songs. Their reflecting time was also awesome to hear as they shared some of the things the teens had shared with them. After hearing these, I was convicted in that I often overlook the faith of these students in the course of a school day in favor for the pressing academic agendas and have in some cases failed to recognize it. While I certainly have to accomplish things in class, I know that if I look for it, it will not take much effort to see the students’ love for God which puts my desire for Him to shame. The teens definitely appreciated and were actively participating in their camp activities as Moeletsi and Tumelo both thanked the team at the bonfire on Sunday night. The impact of this camp will be felt in the coming weeks, months, and years at Bethesda and the surrounding areas.

                In addition to my duties at school and my time spent with the team, I have also had a lot of fun with the kids at Bethesda. As usual, I have been tutoring afterschool and that has been going well. It has turned into a social hour at times, but the students who need some extra help are certainly getting it. But other kids who have not come before are now coming to simply hang out, such as Thandiwe (grade 7) and Lethabo (grade 3). I have not worked with either of these girls in the school much, but within the past week, they both apparently warmed up to me. I also started a fun thing with some of the boys that were just under the age limit to attend the camp. With parental permission, I invited Peter, GMS, Gift, and Steve over to my flat on Friday evening to watch Batman Begins, one of my favorite movies. Needless to say, they all loved it and it was a déjà vu feeling for me as I introduced my younger cousins to this movie and its sequels within the past couple of years. Without any teams coming for the remainder of my stay, I foresee more Batman nights with these boys as well as some of the teens who were at the camp, which is fine by me.

                In conclusion, I would like to ask for prayer on several issues. First, the car repairs which await the Mixons and Tonya are still in the works, but we know that God will work it all out in His time. Secondly, there were some changes made at the school during the past week. I do not want to divulge anything that I shouldn’t before they are officially announced, so I simply ask that the teaching staff would continue do their best to teach the students not only the core subjects, but also instruct them to love and follow the Lord. Lastly, I would ask that I would be more intentional with the kids on spiritual things. While it is easy to simply discuss the events of the day or cultural differences or whatever flavor of the week topic, I know that my faith will be bolstered by them and hopefully it can be the iron sharpening iron that Proverbs talks about. As always, thanks for reading and thank you for your prayers! Take care and have a great day!

In Christ,

Dan Lehe

Week 3: Fun Times with the Purdue Team

Dipuo looking into my flat while other kids play outside.

The Purdue team with the church family at Bo Plaas Baptist Church.

Greetings from Bethesda!

                When I reflect upon my time, it feels as though I am constantly thinking “What a week!” And this one was no certainly exception. As I mentioned last week, several members of the Purdue women’s basketball team and several coaches and team staff as a part of FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) under Marty Dittmar arrived on Friday the 17^th. It has been a great week with them here from many perspectives. They have done an excellent job working on their projects, bonded with kids of Bethesda, and been a spiritual encouragement to all and especially to myself and it was difficult to say goodbye this afternoon. My time at the school has been going well, while still a challenge but nothing overwhelming. In addition to my school and tutoring responsibilities, I was also blessed to go along with the team on a game drive, to a boma braai (a South African cookout), and to one of the most glorious restaurants in the world, Carnivores. To wrap up the week, there was a Sports Day at the school, a pizza night on Friday, and we went to Warmbaths, which was basically a resort along with some other fun things to do. This is only my third full week here, but the days are starting to fly by as the halfway point of my trip nears. Nonetheless, I am really grateful that God brought me here this summer and all how I am able to serve Him through my work here at Bethesda and in the school, while gaining invaluable teaching experience that will pay dividends in the broad spectrum of things.

                To begin, this Purdue team was very special to say the least. While I did not join them during the day due to my school responsibilities, they were able to accomplish so much in a surprisingly small amount of time. They painted many of the light posts and other outdoor equipment here along with the basketball court. Marty said after the first day that this group accomplish just as much, if not more than any group he had brought to Bethesda before. But their impact was not limited to their service. They bonded with the kids and were so fun and friendly to everyone, including myself. I was unsure on how much I should try to be around them, but I was able to join them on many of their fun activities and for their group devotional time almost every evening. While the fun times were great, I know that I will miss the group devotions more than anything. They were all so welcoming and inviting to me and I am so grateful for them all. Even though we all came from the same university in the small town of West Lafayette, I only knew two people on the team before the trip: Marty and Kirstin Ross, a manager for the team who I went to high school with. While I was able to get to know both of them better, I was able to build relationships with everyone else as well. I am also very thankful that I was able to get to know Marty on a much deeper level than I had previously and see him in action during the times that he spoke and taught. He truly is a great man of God and I was blessed to spend time with him (and get fake tattoos with him as well:)

                At the school, this week was more relaxed for the most part and I didn’t feel like a chicken running around with its head chopped off as much. The week started a little rough as I made some mistakes in my social studies lesson for the 6^th grade. Apparently some of the students had missed their lunch due to clean up for an art project on the previous Friday and they asked if they could have their lunch during class. Thinking of this as an opportunity to become well-liked and not realizing the potential distractions, I allowed them to eat their lunch quietly in class. While these students were not particularly noisy, several times I would get going and a hand would go up and I would call on them only to be asked “Can I throw this away?” This then led other students to be disruptive or asked random and completely irrelevant questions. I know that I was definitely frustrated and I did not handle the situation properly as I was very harsh with several students. I recognized my blunder afterwards and before the next lesson, I acknowledged my mistake to the class and asked for their forgiveness while still asking them to be more respectful to me. They definitely responded and the next class went much smoother. I have been teaching all of the social studies for grades 4-7 as well as the nature science for the 5^th grade and have been helping with math in grades 1 & 3. Currently, I think the students think of me as the “cool” teacher. Whenever I walk into the first grade classroom, almost all of the students go “Yes!” and I noticed that the third graders did this as well. I have to say that I am enjoying working with the younger students a lot more than I anticipated. The teachers for these grades have not asked me to prepare lesson plans (which may or may not be a big reason I have enjoyed working with these gradesJ), but have asked me to teach on several occasions. I have definitely enjoyed my time in the school and in tutoring the students after school. It may seem odd, but I have also enjoyed helping the other teachers mark (their word for grading) assignments and make copies. As with teachers in the States, they almost always feel guilty asking me, but I am happy to do it as it is simple work and it gives me the opportunity to serve them.

                On Friday, the school had a Sports Day since the Purdue team was here and it was a blast for students and staff alike. I was in charge of the throwing station. For grades R-3, I had the students work on the softball toss and Frisbee throwing and the older grades tried out shot put, discus, and javelin. It was a lot of fun, but challenging trying to teach students everything I learned in three years of throwing into twenty minutes. Regardless, it was a fun day and throwing the softball to demonstrate for the younger students was great as their jaws dropped when they saw how far I would throw it (I was a bit surprised too, but it was nothing worth writing home about).  The current players, Courtney Moses, Torrie Thornton, and April Wilson, all shared some Scripture and a challenge to the students, all of which were very good and refreshing to hear. We then led the kids in singing "Hail Purdue." Purdue now has a solid fan base in South Africa:) The day ended by a team and teachers versus the students game of kickball. One thing that I can never get over about South African kids is that their feet coordination is superb due to the constant presence of soccer, but their hand-eye coordination is lacking because of this. So in kickball, they could kick it, but they could not catch or pass the ball very effectively. It was pretty funny to watch, but a good time was had by all.

                As mentioned, I accompanied the Purdue on several of the more fun events. On the game drive on Wednesday, we saw giraffes (some were running which were really cool to watch), impala, kudu, warthog, wildebeest, ostrich, rhino, and zebra. During the drive, I learned several things about the giraffes that I couldn’t help but think of how wise of a Creator that God is. First off, they only sleep about 25 minutes a day since they are almost always on the lookout for predators, but they are perfectly rested with that small amount of sleep. Secondly, when giraffes are born, the mother is still standing and the baby giraffe simply falls to the ground. But the impact from the fall helps start the baby giraffe’s heart start beating independently. How cool is that! Following the games drive, we had a boma braai, which featured some delicious steak, sausage, and chicken. The next day, we went to Carnivores, the greatest restaurant on earth (second only to my personal favorite, Penn Station). While we were there, I tried the standard pork, chicken, and lamb and several game meats, such as zebra, kudu, hartebeest, impala, and crocodile. And honestly, I liked them all! Friday night, the team had a pizza night with the older kids of Bethesda, which I oversaw since Lois and John Mixon were off taking care of some things. We actually made a “Harlem Shake” video with the kids. It was a great night for everyone and the video turned out fantastically! Saturday was the day we went to Warmbaths, one of the nicest resorts I have ever been to. I honestly felt guilty at how nice it was, but it really was not expensive. It was very relaxing and enjoyable and I think I was actually tanned a bit. Most of the group went on a horseback ride, which was quite an experience. I had never ridden a horse before despite working with them for years. It was very cool riding through the bush like we did. I can say that I definitely have a much greater respect for my cousins and aunt who ride their horses very often. To end the day, we watched rugby while we ate dinner at a restaurant. It was definitely the most touristy week I had or will have here, but it was very enjoyable and I still spent a lot of time working at the school and in tutoring.

                To conclude, I have several requests that need prayer. First and foremost, on the way back from Carnivores, an animal (everyone who saw it swore it was a small lion) darted out in front of Lois, who was driving her and John’s SUV. Everyone was ok and while the damage to the car was not catastrophic, it did cause antifreeze to leak. They are currently without a car and will be without one from quite a while most likely. Car repairs tend to take a while here as they have to ship all the parts here. The sooner their car can be repaired, the better, but the Lord should definitely be praised as no one was hurt in the accident. The same request can actually be made for Tonya Small and her car as well due the accident she was in several weeks ago. Secondly, please pray for safety for the Purdue team as they head back home tonight and tomorrow. Lastly, I would ask for wisdom for myself in dealing with the students in God-honoring manner and for wisdom in my future decisions regarding post-graduation plans, which have been on my mind a lot of late. Thank you for reading and thank you for your prayers! Take care and have a great day!

In Christ,

Dan Lehe

PS: Happy Birthday to the best brother-in-law in the world, Blake Taylor!

The Adventures of Miss Lehe (Yes, you read that correctly)

The Bethesda/Purdue Alumni flag that I will sign soon:)

One of the giraffes I've seen so far.

The best picture of the rhinoceros that I saw. 

(I didn't take many pictures this week so I thought I'd put these up.) 

Hello Everyone!

The first week in Jabulane Christian Academy has come and gone and it’s surprising how fast it went! Looking back on it, it was kind of a hectic and somewhat stressful week, but it is giving me a look ahead into what my student teaching will be like come this fall. Being the new teacher in the school, the students have been very excited to have me in class and have welcomed me with arms wide open so to speak. The teachers have been kind and extremely helpful as well. Experience truly is the best teacher and while I am certainly using a lot of what I have learned in my classes at Purdue, it has extremely beneficial to put these things into practice in the classroom.

There are some things that you can never be prepared for though. One of these things that has been ongoing at the school is that I am repeatedly being called "Ma'am" or "Miss Lehe." This is not any sort of disrespectful gesture but rather a language issue. The native language for most of the students is Tswana (pronounced swan-a) and in Tswana, there's no distinguishing between masculine and feminine words like he & she, his & her, Mr. & Miss, etc. When the kids speak in English, they don't always register that English does have this difference and the result is that I'm often referred to as "Miss Lehe," "Ma'am," or in one instance "Auntie Lehe." It's an honest mistake on the students' part and they are usually pretty embarrassed when they catch their mistake so I'm pretty chill about it and let it slide. Although there was one time where a first grader kept saying “Ma’am, Ma’am, Ma’am!” and never realized her mistake at all. Needless to say, I had a difficult time keeping a straight face, but I put on my grown up pants and moved on. 

            My time in the classroom has been an adventure thus far. I am on a regular schedule where I split my time amongst almost all of the grades somewhat equally. Tonya has handed over her 5^th grade natural science class to me and it looks like also I’ll be teaching the social studies for the 4^th, 5^th, & 6^th grades. I also have helped out in math in many of the grades. Some of the teachers have made plans for me to teach certain things on certain days, while others have not. For the first grade class, I walked into the classroom on Tuesday afternoon and asked how I could help and two minutes later, I found myself teaching an art lesson on the fly. Luckily, it was over mixing primary colors which I had done last semester in my art class, which I thought I would never use. So from about 7 am – 3 pm, I am at the school, although I am only teaching about a third to half of the time. After school, I get about a fifteen minute break before I go and help tutor the Bethesda students on their homework, which usually lasts until 5 or so. It has taken some adjusting for sure and it will certainly take more as I have been working on lesson plans as well. I also taught Assembly (chapel) for the 3^rd -7^th grade students on Friday on the story of Elijah calling down fire from heaven and how there is only one true God. It went pretty well although I did primarily (or maybe entirely) read from my script. Either way, I hope the kids grasp the concept that who you glorify is your god. From this experience though, I definitely have a much higher respect for pastors and teachers at all of the churches I have been to, both here and back home. One of the coolest things about Jabulane is that all of the teachers meet before school and prayer for the school and for specific students as well. It's been very encouraging and cool to see. and be a part of.

            This past week at Bethesda saw one team leave and another team arrive. The team from Lee University headed out on Wednesday to their other planned activities in South Africa. On Friday evening, the team from Purdue, which Marty Dittmar is leading, arrived. The following link tells about the members of the team that are here. Also worth noting, I’m the “current Purdue student doing an internship at the Academy.” Sorry, I couldn’t resist:)

http://www.purduesports.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/051413aaa.html

            Everyone on the Purdue team has been really cool and I was really impressed with them on Friday evening. Marty flew separately and due to some flight complications, he didn’t arrive until Saturday morning. I was sticking around the team center after dinner that night to show Tim, the team’s videographer, back to his flat and I sat in on their Bible study. Courtney Moses, a senior on the team, led the team in a quick but nonetheless meaningful share time and almost everyone shared a passage of Scripture that had challenged or encouraged them. It was really neat to see them doing this all without Marty around.

            Personally, this week was a bit draining at times, but I am hanging in there. Perhaps the hardest challenge for me is the amount of light during the day. It may sound inane, but when it is almost pitch black at 6 pm and the sun doesn’t rise until 6:15 or so, it gets kind of frustrating when there is nothing to do after dark. It’s not exactly fun spending 9-12 hours alone in my flat, although I do have plenty to keep me occupied. Regardless, I would certainly appreciate prayer that God would help me to spend my time wisely and that I would be able to combat this loneliness by spending more meaningful time with Him in prayer and in His Word. I also ask for prayer as I work in the school as I make lessons and work with the students and at the team center to be glorifying God and serving at all times. The other intern here at Bethesda, Melissa Stone, is a constant reminder to me of what a servant should be. In addition to her duties as an administrative assistant at Bethesda’s office, she also spends a great deal of time preparing the meals for the teams. I’ve spent some time with her several times now and I’ve always come away impressed by her diligence and faithful service, regardless of the circumstances. I pray that I would be as faithful in my service to Bethesda as she is. In addition to this, I had an email conversation with a friend back home who last I had heard was also planning on coming to South Africa and serving at an orphanage sometime this summer and I emailed her asking about when she was leaving. Unfortunately due to some complications with the trip, she elected to cancel it and to stay home this summer. But because she was staying, she had several mothers who asked her to lead a Bible study for their teenage daughters. This reminded me that just because I am “on a mission’s trip” right now, I am still called to serve God wherever I am. I didn’t have to come to South Africa to serve Him and while I am certainly glad that God brought me here to serve, I am still called to serve Him when I go back home and wherever God takes me after I graduate.

Sorry if I went off on a tangent there towards the end, but thanks for reading and thank you for your prayers! I am very grateful for your prayers! Take care and have a great day!

In Christ,

Dan Lehe

First Full Week - Digging, Brick Laying, and Other Shenanigans

Greetings from South Africa!

One of the projects from my first visit in 2010.

Kids at Bos Plaas Baptist Church.

Getting my workout with the kids at Bos Plaas Baptist Church.

Laying bricks with the Lee team.

Digging a trench for the driveway project.

                What a week it has been! This past week was so eventful and great while it did not adhere to any of my predetermined plans. On Monday, the team from Lee University, a Christian school in Cleveland, Tennessee, arrived and I went through orientation with them. They have been such a blessing to Bethesda as well as to me personally. Being 22, no one at Bethesda, staff or any family member, is very close in age to me, so it was a pleasant relief to have fellow students here with me while I am still adjusting to life here at Bethesda. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting to spend time with the kids here and I relished the conversation I had with young Thabiso about if everything in the world was made of chocolate. But they were such an encouragement to me with how they conducted themselves while we worked and when they led the Bible story at New Covenant Baptist Church on Thursday and the chapel at Japulane Christian Academy on Friday. There has never been a dull moment with them and I know I will miss them as they head out next Wednesday.

                Specifically, I have not spent any time in the school yet. The principal, Erens Mahlangu, had a very busy week and was unable to meet with me until Friday. It looks like Monday will be the day when I get into the school. Prayer would certainly be appreciated as I am a bit nervous about this as Japulane is much different from any of the public schools I have been in to date. Instead of being in the school, I helped out the Lee team on the project to lay bricks to form a driveway into the Bethesda property. While I certainly did not expect to be doing anything like this, I was overjoyed to be swinging a pickaxe, scooping out dirt, and laying bricks. Growing up on a farm, this kind of work is second nature to me and believe it or not, I actually enjoy it a lot. It was certainly a nice change of pace for me as I came from the school year wrapping up at Purdue to here. As Lois (the team coordinator) noted, God definitely knew what was best for me so I wouldn’t get burned out and I was able to provide another pair of hands to the driveway project.

                I was also able to interact with the kids and the families a lot more this week. Whether it was seeing the children after school at the tutoring or out playing or working with Elvis and Jack (two of the groundskeepers who are such great men), I am honored to be a part of the Bethesda community. This week, I went to dinner at two of the families’ homes: the Letswalos and the Shikwambanes. Each provided me a different but very interesting experience. At the Letswalos, Peter, who works as a chaplain at a prison in Pretoria, enlightened me about the Zion Christian Church, an erroneous and sadly popular religion in South Africa as well as other countries in southern Africa. It was formed in the 1920s when a German missionary had supposedly led a man to the Lord, but within a month of this conversion, the missionary needed to return to Germany due to a crisis at home. This new believer was now without a mentor to disciple him in the faith. He zealously began to evangelize, but without a solid understanding or foundation in the Scriptures, he strayed from the Gospel and it became much more man focused as well as very financially driven. Peter said that it is now practiced by as many as 9-10 million South Africans. It just goes to show the essential nature of discipleship to the Christian faith and how our sin nature is always present, even when we try to good. At the Shikwambane house, two team members from Lee and I joined them for dinner as well as their family devotions, which consisted of a couple hymns (one of which was in Tswana. That was interestingJ) and reading from Leviticus 19. Upon hearing Leviticus, my first thought was “Really?” But Fritz and Masello did a really good job of explaining the Word to their children and applying it to their own culture, particularly ancestor worship. It just shows that 2 Timothy 3:16 is true about the whole Bible, even Leviticus.

                I’ve also gone with the Lee team on several trips to places outside Bethesda. We went to New Covenant Baptist Church on Thursday and actually went out in pairs with several hospice caretakers. That was certainly interesting as we went into the homes of many of their patients, who I believe had HIV/AIDS. Personally, this helped me realize the individual impact that HIV has on everyone infected with the disease. After this, we helped the church give elementary age students a meal after school and the Lee team led a Bible lesson for them as well. On Saturday, we went to Fritz Shikwambane’s church, Bos Plaas Baptist Church, for a re-opening day for the church, which resulted in an impromptu vacation Bible school. It was a great time as about 75 kids got to do songs, crafts, games, and get a snack. I pulled out my camera and was swarmed by the kids who wanted their picture taken. I probably took about 60 some pictures today. It was a lot of fun and I hope that they all return to hear Fritz present the Gospel.

                So that’s been the highlights of my week. As I move forward, I would ask for prayers regarding my time in the school. This is where the rubber meets the road so to speak and as always for me, I’m a bit nervous with just adjusting to a different school in a different culture. Additionally, this week I received my grades for last semester and I was very pleased with the results. While I definitely put in a lot of hard work, I honestly lost track of the times I called my mom to ask her to pray for me when I was at my wit’s end working on a project or studying for an exam, so to God be the glory! Speaking my mom, Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I love you and I’ll bring you something special when I return!

                Thanks for reading and thank you for your prayers! Take care and have a great day!

In Christ,

Dan Lehe

First Days on the Ground

Having flown in on Thursday night, I've now been here at Bethesda for almost three days. I'm glad to be done traveling for a while, even though Paris was pretty spectacular and I really have nothing to complain about from the flights or the airports. I was surprised to learn that I will have a flat (small apartment) of my own. I think of this a gift for sure, but I know how I tend to isolate myself so I will have to work to avoid this (Proverbs 18:1 - Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment). So far, it's been a lot of orientation and preparation things. Tomorrow, I will be going through the majority of the orientation things with the team from Lee University as they're arriving tomorrow morning. In meeting with Tonya, I have a good idea of what I will be doing in the schools. Tuesday looks like it will be my first day in the school, helping out in various ways. Specifically, I will be teaching a 5th grade natural science course. It looks like I will be in the Senior grades (4-7) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday mornings and then in the Foundation grades (Grade R-3) on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Friday afternoons. I will also be spearheading an after tutoring program that will take place at the team center with some people from the visiting teams as well as an in-home tutoring program. I hope I have all of the details right so I don't have to come back and correct myself later, but we shall see:)

So far, everyone has been so kind and hospitable to me, which should not come as a surprise at all. I remember some of the kids and am gradually learning/re-learning names (emphasis on the gradually). Yesterday, I spent most of the day with Rudy (13) and Steven (12). Steven lives next door to me and I see him a lot now. I look forward to meeting and getting to know all of the other kids. As the next couple of days approach, I am in nervously anticipation for them. I am sure that I will have to remind myself that I am here to serve and to glorify God through my actions and words. Prayer is definitely going to be needed as time goes on because as I usually tend to be, I'm a bit nervous as my time in the school nears. I am really excited but nervous simultaneously and I look forward to meeting those from the other teams.

Thank you all for reading and for praying. I will try to give weekly updates, maybe more or less depending on the circumstances. Specifically, you can pray for my time in the school as well as the time I spend alone that I would use it all wisely and to glorify God.

In Christ,
Dan Lehe