Something to hope for...

Hello friends!  Here's an unfinished post with a few photos from May... I've just finished an amazing month in the USA visiting friends & family and will put in some fun captions after I return to Kenya! Off to the airport now (June 19th)!

 

Although May is now coming to a close, it started with three days of activities for the HOPE students.  

 

After Easter we had our office open each day for our students to study.  Our tutor, Ben, would give the high school students practice tests in the morning and they'd take turns answering the questions on a blackboard.  I was thrilled we had over 20 students come for tutoring.  Only 8-10 can fit inside our office/library, so we had benches set up outside for overflow.

We also had 2 days of workshops for the students aged 13 and older.  A highlight for the students was a visit from a young female lawyer who works on justice and peace issues in the area.  We also had a session on the environment and a relay race designed to include team building and problem solving activities.

We are trying to help the students identify different skills they have.

One of the relay activities was building a Lego boat by sending "scouts" one at a time to look at the instructions.

None of the students had ever seen Legos before! 

The winning team

We also want to encourage students to give back and volunteer, so we had a church "clean-up" day.

Another highlight of May was getting together with the guardians of 8th grade students, since it's a high-pressure year for students.  Many of the guardians were able to offer suggestions on how to face specific problems - which was especially helpful for the two young men who are now guardians for their younger sisters.

We had a very generous donation of books from a book drive at St James School of Red Bank NJ in memory of Rose Rusch.  You can read about her and the foundation started in her honor here.  The students in the Red Bank Catholic High School Maryknoll Affiliates raised money for the bookshelf in this photo and now it's full of books!  I'm particularly excited about the opportunity these books have given for the young girls who were waiting to start a vocational course to improve their English & to encourage all of our students to read.

This photo slipped in from April - the Maryknoll Lay Missioners of Kenya!

As part of our environment day, we had a competition of which team could find the most materials in the area to recycle.

Esther and Maxmilla taking a break.

Titus checking out the local garbage pile for recyclables.

Comparing who brought back the most plastic bottles.

Since one of my hobbies is composting, we had a lesson in composting natural waste, too!

The winning team, Team Orange

The 2nd place team, Team White (it was almost a tie!)

Super Moon in Mombasa