"Jesus loves me and He's my friend!"

After homework time, I have been reading the chapter book, The Tale of Despereaux to Bharat and Ratan. They ask me to sit up on their top bunks and read a few chapters each night. When I have to go, Ratan reads some more to himself :) I look forward to it every night and I, myself am really enjoying the story too!

I have recently acquired a lifelong pen pal. She is one of my 8th class students and her name is Sabiya. She invited Liz and me to her home on Tuesday for food. Indian people are so hospitable and I am SO excited to keep in touch with her and see where her life leads her!!!

Final exams are this week so I am finished teaching English. Now it’s just correcting so. many. tests. How many do you ask? 180 until next Wednesday when Liz and I leave for our travels (we also need to figure out final grades as well). When I get back at the end of March, I’m only here for about 3 more weeks! I leave on Easter, which in some ways seems really ironic to me. In devotions with the little boys, I’m going to be doing the children version of the Stations of the Cross twice a week. We already made a list of each persons name and how they can become close to God in the next 40 days :) I got to go to Ash Wednesday mass last week, which was a real treat. The catholic teacher at school was going so we went with her family. It was in Hindi, but it was nice to go to mass. I’ve only been able to go about 3 times since I’ve been in India. The power went out about half way through… but just a typical Indian day, I guess. The mass was a good reminder of what our lives are really about.

I always wonder what kind of impression I am leaving on the boys and students at school in regards to what they are learning and things like that. I had reassurance a few days ago. I guess at the campus wide devotions with all the boys, Thapa shared some versus in 1 John (I discovered how much I love that book in the Bible since I’ve been here) he had to find for his Moral Science final that I wrote for his class. Also at devotions, since Ratan has been listening to The Tale of Despereaux when I read it, shared about always being brave and having a good outlook on life, no matter the circumstances and that God is always with us, even when we are scared. Also, I teach moral science for Ashish’s class and during big devotions too he said out loud the verse he had to memorize for school. I think our “ Getting ready for Easter” poster from small devotions was shared at big devotions too :)

I’m beaming.

For our weekends on I wake up the boys on Saturday morning. It's so fun being there for when they wake up. I like hearing about the dreams they had the night before... yesterday I found myself dancing to Rahul singing, "Put your left foot in... put your left foot out..." Whatever gets them up and moving in the morning!!

Every morning and sometimes in the afternoon I can hear one of the 5th grade boys singing at the top of his lungs. Yesterday it was "Jesus loves me! Jesus is my friend!!" I smile so much here!