COLD PRESENTATION

A group Photo with the Kids at Makhai Primary School







Today we went to another school; as usual we got there on time. The head teacher wasn’t around, meaning that we had to re-introduce ourselves. I hate introducing myself, but anyway we did and were welcomed by an assistant head teacher who took us into some room. I supposed it must have been a staff room. We told her our intentions and the number of kids that we wanted to help act out some small skits.

Luckily enough she managed to avail the 14 kids; straight away we started directing them on what they were supposed to act/say in front of their fellow students. It all kicked off well but the only challenge we had was that the kids were so cold.

In the beginning I thought may be they didn’t understand my English so I tried speaking slowly but still they were not active. I just continued presenting and my prayer was that the kids understood the whole presentation.
God has been so faithful to us in a way that every time we minister to these places there has been much organization amongst the kids.

We also began the system of providing some sweets to the participants after the whole presentation. This is good in that it feels worth it for those who have presented.
The only thing that we keep on praying is that the Lord would open up the flood gates of heaven in terms of finances in order for this ministry to continue.
We realize that it will be soon challenging when we start moving out further to the villages, need for more gas will arise and we will need to also purchase more costumes.
When the program had just began one of our friends donated some costumes but unfortunately some of the attires were big so we had to reduce them in there sizes.
Which is good but then we find that we will need more costumes for other careers.
We had no doubt that the Lord has a plan and He gives his riches basing on his timing

MY BEST PRESENTATION

Nabuyonga Primary School

I have really enjoyed seeing how the Lord is moving in CHANGERS. It is interesting that many of the careers that we present to the kids are things that they did not realize are actually jobs that they could do as they grow older. I have been able to act more as an “assistant” to Glenn. Seeing as the large groups of children understand his English much better than mine AND that Glenn gets SO fired up and into presenting before these kids, I stay more in the background… taking pictures and organizing the next “actors” to come out at the appropriate time. It has been fun to see the kids, right after they presented their career, talking to the other actors about how their peers responded.

Nabuyonga Primary School was our first school in Mbale town. It was fun to see how sharp these kids were at acting. Also, it was surprising to see the physical size of some of these P7 boys. Surely they are not just 12 years old!! When we enter the class, there was row after row of desks. Some kids were climbing on the desks to get back to their seats in the back. We also had a large crowd of kids standing outside the door, overlooking at what was going on in the classroom. All of our actors really got into the part.

There has also been a great addition at the end of the presentation. The day before, we visited a school that brought in the idea of singing a little song that all primary students learn… “Come and see the use of education. Come and see the use of education. I am a doctor, because of education. I am an electrician, because of education. I am a …., because of education.” So, we have now been using this song at the end. Each actor steps forward and announces their career during the part of the song.
We had been feeling like we needed something to appreciate the actors, so at this school we brought sweeties, BUT there was a mad mob of people at the car when I was trying to pass them out to the actors, so Glenn quickly ushered me into the car and we drove off. But we did promise to the actors that we would give them a soccer ball. I look forward to the next town school we will present at.

CHANGERS has begun!

March 5, 2009

What a wonderful start to this project. Today CHANGERS held its first program at Bumagani Army Primary School, outside of Mbale town. To our surprise, the school has a populous of about 3000, so it was a blessing in disguise that the P6 class was the only class available for the time that we had scheduled. Still, we had about 300 students.

After the classes assembled, we had one of their teachers help us to choose 20 of the most theatrical students to help us with the career skits. They were very excited when assigned their role and told what to act out. So even used their own creativity to display the career further than what we had suggested. As Glenn came out to introduce CHANGERS, we quickly had the audiences’ attention. They eagerly looked around for their first friend who would be coming to act for them. So, out came “the president” and his body guard-soldier. The kids did a really good job of exciting the audience with the president’s speech. Then Glenn asked the kids questions, like what do these careers do and what do you need to study in school to become a person of that profession. It was very active participation. Other careers we were able to present were chef, electrician, police man, doctor, nurse, and painter. It was interesting to see how some of the students were enlightened that some skills could actually be good paying jobs- like a chef in a nice hotel.

Quickly, as school was ending, our audience grew from 300 to about 1500. This became a bit overwhelming, so we had to cut things short. But overall, the students really enjoyed the program and the teachers were appreciative, inviting us back to present to the other classes. Our prayer, as we visit each school, is that CHANGERS will help cast a vision and set a goal for the kids to look forward to as they go through school.