The Fourth Day at Neli.

bernard & karen:

Bernard Wen: The day started out better than the rest; we got through the lessons and filled up all the teaching time. The kids enjoyed making lion faces and we saw that most of them liked the Silly Bands we gave them as prizes. And lunch was bad. However, by the end of the day, we started practicing our song "Jesus Loves Me" and one student mocked us, refusing to say the correct lyrics. We brought PJosh over and he took everyone outside to sing....after some yelling and more singing (and crying), almost all the kids were obedient. They sang again and sounded really really good, so we now know they can sing and do the sign language correctly. Tonight was also the last house visitation. Even though I thought it was the best one so far, I still feel lost doing them, as in I wouldn't know what to do if it was just Karen and me.

Anyways, pray for tomorrow's performance/showcase. And pray that we will have impacted the lives of at least some of these kids, through the lessons, through the songs, and through our Godly love for them.

norman & marissa & jacqueline:

norman ai: today was me and marissa's best day by far. our teamwork and cooperation with each other seemed both efficient and fluent. when one of us is teaching, the other is walking among the students to help and reinforce the other's words. we both actually ended the day feeling like we could teach for another six hours! haha. praise God. today we played a game with shing/si and chris/esther's class. it was a relay race that required the knowledge of the vocabulary words they have been studying for the last four days. my class, being the youngest aged class among the three, lost terribly. shing/si's 5th grade class totally demolished chris/esther [4th grade] and me/marissa's [3rd + 4th grade] class. i had expected my kids to complain about the physical advantage the other classes had over us. i was hoping they would not lose heart or stop trying to play with the other two classes. instead, by God's grace, they remained determined to do their best. in a group huddle, i reminded them of the story of David and Goliath, a story we had just learned monday and tuesday, and how we should strive to do our best against adversity and that God would take care of the rest. our class was David. the other older kids? Goliath. haha. so, for the rest of the game time, my kids screamed their hearts and lungs out in support of their own classsmates during the relay, with me, marissa, and jacqueline jumping and yelling among their ranks. it was a good bonding moment. although we came in third place [50-33-32], alot of the kids began asking me and our seminary student helper, jin ling, about the bible stories. they became more curious about how God helped David through the battle against Goliath, how God saved Daniel from the lion's den. so, all in all, this physical defeat, in my opinion, was a spiritual victory. please pray for our kids as we plan on including more bible doctrine and gospel into tomorrow's lesson. please also pray for our closing ceremony performances tomorrow night in front of the parents and the school's administration. pray that our testimonies and our love for these kids may reflect God's power and love to their parents and teachers! thanks!

chris & esther:

Chris Sung: Today was alright, however, I feel like it was not as good as the past few days. Teaching was not as smooth today as it seems that we didn't prepare quite enough even though the other days we prepared the same amount and it worked out quite well. Also, today I got dehydrated which was not fun at all. Thank God I didn't actually get ill and catch a cold or flu. Please pray for Esther and me to better prepare the lessons for next week and to continue to keep all of us safe from whatever may befall us. Tomorrow we have our camp's closing ceremony, so pray that the ceremony goes smoothly as well.

shing & si:

shing chow: not too much report on today. we are closing in on the end of the week and we are starting to feel the sadness of having to leave these kids. one of our students, kelly, will be not attending tomorrow because of a trip and we had to say our good-byes today. we will definitely miss her =( but we leave you with a picture... of our fuzzy sheep craft (which was insane to make because of the lack of cotton balls in this country)