Drama Club: "Uncle John"

 From October to December, we held a weekly Drama Club for some of the children from our Sponsorship Project. We were preparing the Christmas play for our shoebox package distributions. Last year we only had 3 speaking parts, but this year everyone got a chance to speak. We learned a bit about how to perform on stage, and practiced the play many times each week.

We also practiced our singing!

Bojan reprised his role as "Čika Jovan" ("Uncle John"), which he first did in 2016. I wrote the play for a different group of kids back then, so just adapted it for this group. And I was so happy to be able to include Alisa (in yellow below) who has a speech impediment - even giving her a speaking part!! She was so happy!

We practised on the stage, but also in other places in the church, as we would be performing it not just at the church, but also in different places around Banja Luka and Celinac. By the end they could do it in their sleep!! 

Volunteer Christmas Party

 We have a wonderful group of faithful volunteers who help us at the Children's Home and also with a sponsorship project workshops and Christmas package distributions. We usually give them a lovely Christmas party each year to say thank-you and this year was no exception! 

We had Tacos this year - which was very well received as you can see! 

Then it was time to recognise those with the most hourse. Vlad (next to me) got the most hours and then it was Nada and Masha (next to him) and then the twins and Jovana were next in line. 

And everyone got a lovely crocheted heart as a thank-you!! 

And then they surprised me and Ljilja with a special present for each of us. We totally did not expect it!! It was so lovely - we are so grateful for what they do for us, and here they were showing us how grateful they are for what we do - giving them a place to volunteer and grow! 

Here we all are with the presents they got us! 

It really was a lovely evening - I don't have pictures of the Christmas Quiz run by Kate or the reminder that Haley gave us why we celebrate Christmas. We love our volunteers and look forward to continuing to work with them in the New Year! 🧡

Children's Home "Trip around the world"

 

Instead of our usual "Reading Club" at the Children's Home, this semester we decided to go on a trip around the world. The first week we made our passports and then each week we travelled to a different country on each of the continents. We explained the first week that next week we would travel to Brazil, and the next week one of the teachers told us that one of the little girls thought we were actually going to go to Brazil. Luckily she wasn't disappointed when we explained we would just be pretending. Kids can be so cute!  Each week we got another page in our passport to colour, with the flag and continent map and what we had learned about on it... can you guess which country is "JUŽNO AFRIČKA REPUBLIKA"?

With about 30 kids attending each time, these were some of the best workshops we have run in the home. For instance, we "travelled" to Brazil and learned about toucans. In Australia we learned about kangaroos. When we travelled to India we learned about the festival of Diwali - the "Festival of lights": LOTS of cutting and pasting! Our favourite activity!

And for the US we learnt about Thanksgiving (on Thanksgiving day!). But I think my favourite photo of the whole time is the one at the top of the blog... it just shows how much fun and "fun" it is working with these children who just need to know they are loved by someone. We do try to do something educational, and sometimes we do actually learn something, but the most important thing they learn from us is that they matter! 💗

Mother's Monthly meetings

Every month throughout the year, we try to have a meeting with the mothers in our sponsorship project. We usually average about 20 mothers, and older sisters and it is usually a great time together. I shared on a couple of them - one on dealing with stress and the other on self-awareness/personality tests. Other times we have shared from the Bible, or just on a life skill topic. 

At the end of the year, we had a special Christmas party for them, and they were so excited to celebrate Christmas together in this way with us: 

We had a lovely dinner, followed by a talk about Christmas: and how we need to know the one whose birthday we are celebrating! 

After the talk we made special Christmas decorations with photos of their families inside. It was such a special way to celebrate family and Christmas!