We Love Ruth Mother Care.

Coming back home after the village and being re-united with our friends in Kampala was so lovely. It made me realise how quickly we’d formed friendships and how much people here care with such sincerity! Praise God for good friends :)

After spending Sunday evening at church, we rested and recollected ourselves on Monday. Then on Tuesday we had the pleasure of re-joining Ruth Mother Care! The children and teachers are always so full of joy on our arrival (however late we arrive) and it felt so good to be back. Last week the children had exams so we were only in for half days; we supervised exams, led revision lessons to re-cap what they’d learnt previously and managed to fit in some fun stuff too...

I brought in a book called ‘The Selfish Crocodile’ (a much recommended childhood read!) and as we read and acted out this story with the  children in our P2 and P3 classes, their eyes widened and their faces grinned as they smiled and laughed absorbing every colour, animal and word on each page. To say the least the children were absolutely delighted. I hadn’t realised just how much excitement a simple story book would cause… And it hit me again how few resources these children had access to and how often we take our many resources totally for granted. Having studied the literacy development in children at university, I have learnt that reading story books regularly at school and at home, with teachers, peers, parents and siblings, has a largely positive impact. It helps to broaden the child’s vocabulary (both knowledge and understanding of words), improves spelling, grammar and pronunciation. Therefore, having access to story books would have hugely beneficial implications for these children learning English at Ruth Mother Care (and elsewhere). SO… Here’s the best bit… There is something we can do about it. If you have any old story books at home that you no longer use, we could love to collect them and send them to Ruth Mother Care School so that they can build up a library for the children to use. Whether you have one, two, ten or more books, everything will be so gratefully received and will benefit the education of many beautiful children, empowering them with language skills and giving them hope for the future.

We returned to RMC on Friday, after a day of illness on my part, and realised things had not gone according to plan. Sadly there had been confusion due to miscommunication about how long we were helping out at the school, so all the children were prepared to leave and have their last day at school (we were hoping to have an extra day with them all on Monday). Although we felt terrible to start with, our God so full of grace somehow turned our day around enabling us to get everything done that we wanted to. Grace is being given undeserved favour from God, none of us deserve his blessings but he is so gracious in blessing us regardless. I am so thankful for God’s grace, that God is on our side and that he invites us to lean on his strength not our own – because we are so weak! But He is strong.

Enjoying African tea and blowing up balloons in the teachers office!

We started by getting the children to finish drawing some card designs which we are hoping to make and sell back home (there are some fabulous drawers) which they all enjoyed. Then, we carried out a creative craft idea for gardening; Emily helped the children plant onion seedlings in plastic bottles in groups, whilst I taught the rest about what plants need to grow. After break, we told the children the story of Noah’s Ark which was great fun – We read from a children’s picture bible and stopped at various intervals to do activities. First, we played an animal game that was hilarious even though it didn’t go according to plan, then we sung “the animals went in two-by-two, hurrah, hurrah!” whilst marching in pairs. As the flood part of the story came, we surprised then with balloons to represent the waters! Then, Emily face-painted a rainbow on each child to remind us that God is faithful and keeps his promises, whilst I asked questions about the story and gave out animal stickers. After that, we collapsed into little wooden chairs and watched as the children had prepared a wonderful farewell session of incredible dances, amazing singing and a sweet little speech. It was touching watching them rejoice and smile, dance and sing for the last time of our trip. It has been a true privilege to join this school for the time we have, what a huge blessing to teach and play with these wonderful children.

Traditional Ugandan Dance!

And as for the teachers… We spend one last day with them on Monday, decorating their office, tying together crafts and cooking them English food. I have learnt so much from these inspirational women, about how to genuinely love and deeply care the children you have been entrusted with. They are incredible women filled with God’s joy, compassion and utter strength. I am amazed by them and the way they are so expectant for God to continue doing great things in this school. 

Please do keep the children and teachers of Ruth Mother Care School in your thoughts and prayers.