GKGW

Serving in sunday school seemed to be preparing me for parenthood. Last weekend, I attended the GKGW ( Growing.Kids.God. Way) workshop for the minstry workers and was totally thrown off the chair after hearing what the speaker had shared with us. At different parts of the workshop, i felt my values and principles of raising a kid different from what the underlying principals of the parenting strategm,something that kept me reflecting and wrestling within myself throughout the session. After the session, I couldn't contain and call my hubs and said," I can't be the disciplinarian!You have to be one.If not, i think i will end up crying in the room after i cane our child." :)

This weekend, a parenting course is opened for couples who are preparing to conceive. Great timing. Hubs and I thought it would be a good idea to sign up to gather some thoughts on our parenting style and ways to raise the kids in god's way. We did. Paid $25 and the saturdays afternoon in 2010 were booked.

Look pretty scary now as I see how calendar in Jan 2010 are filling up really fast!

If you have realized.....

that i have not posted a lot of my pictures ..that's because our camera was down and it was time to get a new one. Well,trying to search for a new one because I really need one to take all the pictures of the classrooms which I have visited.Did I tell you the sweetest thing over this weekend was the children from MSC was so welcoming and loving to me even though I have not seen them from my last visit to the class? L ,my 5 year old who had slight physical delay came up to me and asked if I was sick. I was shocked that she knew and reckoned that the cooperating teacher has done a great job in keeping the kids in touch with me.She gave me a hug and said that she was sick and hoped that I was well. Then she went on and told me that she was sick but she still came to school. I was embarrassed. After a while, she came up to me and gave me another hug again, and said she wanted to invite me to her bday. I was so touched. Coz I had not seem this class for like one month and they still remember me!!!
Plus, A.,F.,and D. were really such sweet children, sharing their life with me.You know what, it is always interesting to talk to children coz u can never underestimate how much they have known at such a young age.One child said," I had no daddy but I had two mummies," . Another child said," We are not from the same father. She is my step sister. The third child said," I am Chinese even though my parents are Caucasions and American,"The fourth child said," I have a lot of play dates with my mother but I had very little with my dad. I only went to his house on weekends. i wish I had more time with him," It might struck you for a second if you are not prepared but when such statements came across, you must be quick to respond that all these differences are accepted in the classroom and that they would still be love and accepted by the teacher. That's the whole thing about accepting diversity is all about, accepting children of dfferent backgrounds, colors,social economic class, gender ,race and special needs and allowing them to feel integrated and be part of the classroom.They are all perfect in our eyes,When they told you such things, these information added to your pool of knowledge of finding ways of devising better instructional methods and designing curriculum taking into the context of their social cultural background.

With such a key important piece in mind, today's outreach in Patterson( a building across the local jail) with the Hispanic and African American kids made me want to read up more about them. I went for Hannah;s mission for the first day and I would be going on a regular basis to spend some time fellowshiping with them. Honestly, I am not sure of their family backgrounds but just culturally, i realized I have a bit of barrier initially of approaching them especially when I have known that they might be from low income families and I needed to be sensitive to it. But during the praise session, guess what, I told myself that I have to remove my" color lenss" and just be initiative and positive with them. They turned out to be such sweet children,seriously!! I pray god will use me to help children in anyway HE wants me to do,especially children with special needs and low income family. It just warmed my heart,knowing that their lives will have beautiful memories of having someone caring and loving them and impacting the way they see this world.

We have become parents of...

Mr Sadam. Okies. I am not kidding. I forgot to blog about this on Christmas Eve because of all the shifting again. He is 10 years old from Uganda, a country in Africa which is severely impacted HIV/ AIDS. In his community, AIDs has wiped out the whole generation of hardworking adults.Frightened children and exhausted grandparents rarely have money for food,school or medical care.My Sadam is in primary school and he enjoys Math. He helps at home by carrying water and likes to play ball games. He lives with his grandmother, 1 brother and 2 sister and is in satisfactory health.The reason we choose Sadam is because he has only 2 more years to be sponsored. World vision has a rule that all children can be sponsored till they are 12 years old.We made a commitment of contributing US $40 dollars each month to help him gain access to basic needs and learn about God's unconditional love for him. Despite being financially unstable ourselves, we think that coming up with 40 dollars is still within our means.Come to think of it. If you set aside 10 dollars each week, cut down on your minature expenditure on earrings,games and food, this amount is enough to save these children in these countries. I therefore urge you to do the same.Please click on this link to

WORLDVISION

find out more information on child sponsorship. You can also write to your child and visit him if you want. One day,if is in HIS will, I will love to to go to Uganda to visit Sadam.
"For we are God's masterpiece.He has created us anew in Christ Jesus,so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

Blessed Child -Shannice

Shannice, my lovely niece who was the main highlight of my wedding coz she dressed so well in the morning and in the night. This little one who just passed her 3rd year birthday this May was such a bubblejoy to everyone around her. She has amazing linguistic abilities, able to speak up what she wants clearly. I am amazed how intutively she seemed to be able to connect with the adults, somehow like her mum, she has high emotional intelligence. She was able to comprehend black humor and able to tease you back.I would say "A" in her cognitive abilities and comprehension. She could rattle on and on for hours. She was the only child who could conduct conversation with me about three hours. And i said a decent logical flowed conversation about fish " for three hours. She was really loveable and you just couldn't smother her with lots of kisses and hugs.She loved to read and write which was innate in her since she was young.I couldn't count the number of times she has asked me to read when she was just two and yes, she woahhh me with her super long concentration of two hours in the library, sitting on my lap doing reading.

I have been wondering what has contributed to this high level of reasoning and understanding, amazing concentration and linguistic abilities. Then recently, while helping to clear her mummy's stuff, i realised my dear cousin has been so diligent doing the flashcards to her . Kudos to J who has been so committed in parenting despite her busy schedule. Even though you are somewhere in the heaven looking at us, i am sure all these efforts have helped her in her development.I reckon this could be one of the factors which has led to her wide explosion of vocabulary and knowledge but of course, i think she has some innate abilities which could rub off from the good genes...like being talking and sociable like J.

So Nature vs Nurture? Which is which?

The Bluedevil Kids

Did I tell you that basketball is a BIG thing over here in Duke? Well not only was it exciting to watch a live match in our homeground when our team is playing, it was definitely a good thing to participate in all those cheers and do those silly facepainting and wear the BLUEDEVIL wigs and T-shirts. Gosh, i love it !It made me high and I felt like i am back in high school while I was doing those silly booing cheers. The school spirit was strong.The undergrads were particularly crazy while the graduates were kinda of mellow but still couldn't contain their excitement when the whole stadium started roaring.The Cameroon celebrated when the woman's team beat the UNC team last week and guess what even though the men's team suffered a bitter lost today to UNC, there are two devils celebrating the lost at home just because COACH K ( Duke's men basketball team)was their most terrified man. Look at how mad they become.

Kids Part 1

This is one of my first entry of the series on children. Well, my last conversation with carolyn on phone was pretty interesting. She was telling me how god was in the process of moulding me to become a mother and then shared her BIG PLAN in FALLS with me.I told her about the recent events which evolved around me and BB.Too many kids!!!Too many fun with them!! They glued to us like a sticky bug that their daddies and mummies love to have us around. Just because they can take a break while the children were busy climbing all over us. " Uncle Ronald , Auntie Raine, what's this ? what's that? " Our heads were all fried by them!!

They were whole lot of fun yah and all the mummies and daddies said Ronald and I were ready to become parents. Geez...can you believe this, we din get this from our parents but we get this from our friends while we were overseas??/Man, is this a calling? I let god decide.

Sweet young ones

I enjoyed myself at Tumbletots yesterday with those little ones. It made me gleened with joy whenever they took a small step to try the obstacles. I like to see that they are confident of themselves and they are enjoying their time with friends. They are sweet bunch and I could not contain to give them hugs and kisses. No barrier when it comes to giving hugs. Everybody loves hugs and they responded well to me . The innocence , the trust and honesty...you simply cannot resist to adore them. All are worthwhile for the time spend with the young ones again. I will come back next week again.I am glad I went.