Outreach Day

Each term we have an Outreach Saturday, where staff and students reach out to and share God's love with our community around us. Almost everyone is involved - from the littlest kindergartner to the juniors, seniors and staff of our school. There are lots of opportunities to choose from and every year we find more and more ways to reach out. Some examples of service projects that we do on a day like this are: building a house for a widow in the community, visiting a local orphanage, tree planting, collecting and delivering firewood for widows, garbage pick up, road repair, playing sports with kids from a local school, preparing food for the sick people down at the hospital (within walking from our school), playing with kids who are patients at the hospital, and the list goes on!
This last Saturday was Outreach Day and our family spread out in three different directions. Jeff will tell you about his day in a separate post, Megan went down to the hospital with her fourth grade class and disinfected toys in the playroom and played with the kids. Ian and I accompanied Lyndsey's first grade class and the kids made pictures and sack lunches for the guards who work day and night at our school to protect us. We had a lot of fun and the guards enjoyed hearing the kid's stories, seeing their pictures and listening to them practice Swahili!

Here is Megan, in the toy room at the hospital, disinfecting toys.

This is the fourth grade class (plus Mrs. Hall - the teacher- and a few high school girls), standing outside the hospital. This is a hospital that specializes in helping kids with burns, deformities and other crippling diseases.

The first graders are hard at work making cards for the guards. They also made hamburgers and cookies.

Here we are, delivering the cards and the lunches. In each lunch: a hamburger, a bag of chips, a bag of peanuts, a coke, and some cookies.

The kids practiced their Swahili greetings that they are learning in class. (Ian also gave his new guard friend Peter a big stick "to keep the bad monkeys away!")

This was a special day, not only to bless others, but it was a blessing for all of us to think of others before ourselves. As Lyndsey's first grade class is learning.....JOY means "Jesus, then Others, then You."