Mondays with Allee

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34: 18           We are getting back in the swing of things here after our two week midterm break.  The seventh graders sat for their National Examinations at the beginning of the second week and then packed their belongings and left KEMPS for the last time as students.  The tension they visibly showed the previous week was replaced with contagious joy and relief as they came by my house to say their goodbyes.  Their absence signaled the start of the end of the school year, and it hit me just how little time here we have left.             The same day the seventh graders left campus, Joseph mother and his little cousin Getruda arrived from Mwanza.  Knowing that her baby boy would soon be leaving the country, she wanted to spend a week with us while we had a break from work.  I knew that the routine Joseph a...

He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18: 2-4 Today is the first day of our two-week midterm break.  There is something so exciting and motivating knowing that the next two weeks are totally free- free of alarms or schedules or meetings, but also free to take long morning walks, free to watch a movie in the middle of the day or stay up late finishing the last chapters of a book I can’t put down.  It’s also exciting because on the 1st of September, it started to rain.  Our short rainy season has brought with it cooler, cloudy, fall-like days, that make you want to curl up with a blanket and light a cinnamon candle.  I’m pretty much in heaven.   But heaven looked a lot different for my fifth grade cla...