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 5th
grade natural science class to me and it looks like also I’ll be teaching the
social studies for the 4th, 5th, & 6th
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 3rd -7th 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:)
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
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