Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

This is Mery's bible story book she got a year and a half ago.  She has worn the cover and several  pages off of it in that time.  During times like this it is good to make sure we spend time daily reading the Bible and communicating with God.  While it is ok to be afraid of this virus, you can find comfort and strength in your beliefs. I need to be honest about a couple of things at the beginning of this blog.  I have mainly seen just numbers dealing with the pandemic and am not sure why this virus outbreak has caused such an uproar and disruption to the world (I do mean world here).  I assume it must be a non-tangible bit of information, something that cannot be quantified because the numbers don't match previous plain flu outbreaks much less avian or swine flu. Secondly, I struggled with what to write about with all of this going on.  Countries closing their borders and cancelling flights, entire states closing their school systems, the NBA ca...

Being the week of Thanksgiving I felt it was a good time to give thanks to many of those who help me and the school this year.  The difficult part of that for me is that I only know who supports me or someone who gives to the overall ministry because they went through me to do so.  There are so many folks supporting the overall ministry of Tumaini School that I would hurt someones feelings because I was unaware of their contribution and therefore forgot to mention them.   So I hope you can simply take my heartfelt thanks for what you do.  If you prayed for the school, our kids, the teachers or me, then thank you.  If you donated money to help support the school, students, me or a special project we were fundraising for, then thank you.  If you have made a video for our Virtual Mission Trip and "Reading With Barnabas", then thank you.  If you organize, help at, or participate  in one of the fundraisers for the school then thank you....

Today is my first day to teach at the preschool.  The kids are between ages 4 and 7.  We have 68 enrolled this year.  I am going to show them an educational cartoon about counting to 10 created by Akili and Me . The numbers in Kiswahili go 1-moja, 2-mbili, 3-tatu, 4-nne, 5-tano, 6-sita, 7-saba, 8-nane, 9-tisa, 10-kumi.  A mission team last year installed the solar power system in the school building and I am borrow a tv to show the cartoons that I download from YouTube when in town.  This will be the first time most of these kids have seen a video much less a cartoon.   After the cartoon and the other teachers constantly moving the kids around for a better view (it is 68 kids and one 24" TV), I taught a lesson on the numbers.  Basically I wanted them to count each number different ways.  Show me 4 fingers on one hand.  Draw 7 circles on a sheet of paper.  Get in groups of 5.  We did these type activities mixing in crafts, b...