Candles and Flashlights {Tuesday, March 17}

The past two nights we have had no power. Usually right after dinner is when the electricity dies. Power goes out all the time here in Africa. Monday night we had five of us lying on my bed comforter under the stars. The stars here are incredible… you can even see the Milky Way. We saw a few shooting stars and too many low-flying bats to count. After about an hour lying on the ground we got a bit psyched out by the possibility/reality of critters, spiders and snakes and decided to go in.

We are still visiting three schools a day this week. Another part of our school visits that I have not yet mentioned is our Life Orientation program. South Africa requires schools to teach a class called Life Orientation (LO). From my understanding, this curriculum is a combination of health education, life skills, and guidance counseling. The program is supposed to educate kids on topics like HIV, abuse, love, healthy relationships with people, sex, and others. It is a class in K-12 curriculum every year.

Book of Hope has put together a Life Orientation program that we offer to schools free of charge. LO material is often hard to come by, or not well done, so I’m excited BoH is doing this. We have both teacher manuals and student books that we provide. This material is geared toward HIV education, abuse, decision-making skills, character development, and education in morals and values. There are many interactive demos and illustrations given to teachers throughout the program which they seem to appreciate. The end of the book has Christian applications and teachings that teachers are able to use as well. Christianity can be taught in SA schools, but teachers are not allowed to teach any religion as absolute truth.