To my adoring fans. Sunday, Feb. 16

My dear fans,
Hey there! How are y'all doing? (Notice that the question cannot be answered unless y'all email me. Just send it to our family account.) I'm doing pretty good. I've been fighting off an annoying cold, or something like that, for about a week now. I thought I was over it, but last night my throat got all clogged up after I laid down.
Let's see, y'all probably want to hear about what we do here. Well, on a typical day (ha!) we get up at 5 or 5:15 and have Bible study with Brother Ronnie at 6:15. Most of the time we leave about 7:30, so you pretty much have to have everything ready to go by 6:15. That means a sandwich for lunch and you've got to have all props, or visual aids, that you will be using in the classroom. After Bible study we go over to Mrs. Karens's house and pack our lunch. She's got chips, fruit, and what not laid out on the table and you take whatever you want to go with your sandwich. Then we leave. Most days we do between two and four schools. We split up into two groups. On the way there you get your schedule. Once at the school, you sign in, and then start teaching. You have half an hour for each class and normally between four and six classes. So far we've been teaching Orderliness and Punctuality, although I will be doing Resourcefulness one day this week. Anna and I work together as a team, which is pretty fun. Most of the other people do solo, since we're pretty low on character coaches right now (hey, any of y'all want to come up and help?) The classes are anywhere from kindergarten to 6th grade. We normally teach a poem, then I do about two minutes of juggling and tie it into the character quality and then a story. I think I like doing the punctuality story best, because we get the kids involved alot (in most of the classes. In some the kids are just barely under control and you can't do anything to get them riled up). Of course things go a little different in each class...obviously you don't do what you would do in a kindergarten class with the 6th graders. We've only had one class that's been difficult so far, but I understand that sometimes they can be really tough.
Our longest day is Tuesday. We leave at about 7:30 and don't get back until 9:30 or 10. After doing two schools a piece, each group meets at a church in inner-city Memphis. There we do a CEF club that lasts about an hour and a half. Then we have a break (yes!!!) of about an hour and a half, and then the English as a second laungage people start to arrive. The adults go to English class in another part of the church and we do something kinda like a CEF club with the kids. Most of them speak pretty good English, so understanding them isn't a problem. We finish with that somewhere around 9 or 9:30 and then head back home. That is a long day! The one good thing about staying out so late is that after 9 you can make calls home for free on Brother Ronnie's cell phone, so I normally manage to make a call home during the ride back. Friday evenings we go to Chinese Church and do a CEF club with the kids there.
Most days we have the afternoons at home and about half of those you spend over at the "center". The Center is the youth center, where Philip (Bro. Ronnie's and Miss Karen's son-in-law) does an after-school character club. We have mostly elementary school kids come. We do a Bible or character lesson, help kids with their homework and play outside with them. It's interesting work. None of the kids we work with regularly have a Dad, and none have a good family life. They're all dying for love and attention. They all know a whole lot more about the world and it's ways than any of us, so we have to be careful. We simply avoid topics like music and movies, and the guys are under orders to just stay clear of a couple of the girls, for their good and ours. It's really sad. The character coaches are all really cool. Counting Anna and I there are nine, four guys and five girls. Then there's Miss Karen and Bro. Ronnie and Phil and Eva (Miss Karen and Bro. Ronnie's daughter and son-in-law). All together 13. They're all a really cool group. The ones I've gotten to know best are Craig (who I knew before coming out here), Eric, Josh, Rachel and Becky.
Well, I'd better be going now. Evening service starts in an hour and I want to call home before then. Love all y'all! God bless ya!