Well, I am in the middle of my third week here. I don't know where the time went.
It was so good to have my sister, Hannah, here for the first two weeks. She was able to help me out a lot and give me some good shoves in the right direction..:)
As many of you know, when I arrived here I was uncertain as to what group of girls I was going to be working with. I am happy to say that I have officially picked a group to Momma!! I have seven girls-Glory, Hope, Meghan, Amulya, Dhivenah, Carmen, and Dawn .
I have started a pretty simple schedule with them, and it seems to be going well.We start out the day around 9am with a time of worship and prayer, and then we have a short class. I have been working on teaching them colors (and their signs) and body parts. We look at books, and I read to them. We usually have some sort of game with puzzles or balls. We end the morning by watching 'Signing Time' and just hanging out before lunch. We eat lunch together, and the girls go down for a afternoon nap. This gives me a nice chunk of time to do laundry, run errands, etc. Around 3 I go down and have chai with the Ammas, before we do the girls hair. Once all the girls have been lice combed and their hair re-braided, I take one of them out on a walk. It is a good opportunity to get them out of the house and have some one-on-one time.
A couple of things you can be praying for:
-Good relationships to be built with the girls-I don't think I realized how hard relationship-building can be. I think I naively assumed that I could step in and have a perfect relationship with each of my girls. And I can, to some extent. They are very accepting. But I want to have a special relationship with each of them, and that is going to take time.
-Good relationships with the Ayahs. Ayahs have tough jobs, and right now we are rather understaffed, which is making it even harder for them. Pray that I would be understanding of them, and that we could be friends, despite the language barrier.
-Wisdom for me! There is lots to do, and lots that could be done. I need to be discerning about what is a priority and what can wait till later.
A couple of random notes:
I have set up a wish list on Amazon India for anyone who is interested in helping be get some supplies for my home. The girls have very few toys, and many of these things would also be very helpful to have in class. The link and my address are below:
http://www.amazon.in/gp/registry/wishlist/ANENY8VQK5I/ref=cm_wl_sortbar_o_page_2?ie=UTF8&page=2
My address:
Michaela Stam
H 20 Rd. 1
Prashasan Nagar Jubilee Hills
Hyderabad, TELANGANA - 500033
Mobile #:7036420239
Mobile #:7036420239
Also, because of government regulations I can't post any pictures of the kids on social media. If you would like to be added to my email group (I am able to email pictures), please let me know!
Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. I love hearing from all of you!
