Aug. 9-20

I found a great coloring book on the one story of the Bible. It is so helpful in introducing the youngest children to the Bible stories because each large colorful picture tells the story as well as the one or two English sentences under each picture. The Malawian teacher, Patience, reads the few sentences in Chichewa and then reads them again in the English. Our children are beginning to respond to English, even those children who do not have English speaking parents are speaking a little English. They understand a lot more English than they speak. I have been spending all my spare moments in coloring pages. Now that the Ter Haar and Nagy children are back, they have helped to color some; thus I have been able to finish the Old Testament. We have 3 different children’s Bibles that are great. We are using the large pictures and few words with the youngest children because of the language barrier. The young children are responding to the pictures and that’s encouraging.

The oldest Nagy and Terr Haar children will be leaving for Kenya on Wednesday. Dr. Ter Haar and Dr. Nagy will be going with them to get them settled into their dorms and to attend parent orientation. Willeke and I will keep the other children. Happy will be up here at the Ter Haar’s with us. All the children get along beautifully. They really enjoy playing together.

There has been a lot of turnover in the volunteer missionary helpers recently. The McAuleys left yesterday and the guesthouse group of over 60 camping out on their grounds have returned to California. Their organization, WHY MALAWI, comes every year with a large group. Jane, a nurse from England, just arrived for three months, She and Maralise came to see the school yesterday. I was glad to see them, for I had collected a number of things that Mraslise could use at her Orphan School.

We finally moved the first grade into the new building for the last week of school. So I have been busy moving an administration office into the room that the first grade was using last year. I have made three attempts to get Linken to the school to make shelves for a library to house all the wonderful books people have so graciously contributed. As I go through the books received I get bogged down because I feel I must read a lot of them. We really have some great books. Thanks to so many of you.