Recent Parot Church Baptisms

One Lord's Day last month there were 35 baptisms at our local church. Six adults were baptized after professing faith in Christ and 29 children of believers were also baptized.

The roof of the church is made of grass mats that are in bad shape and let in quite a bit of sun. So sorry about the quality of the pictures taken in the church--I know it's hard to see the people well.

In the picture below, Pastor John Alou is talking with the parents who want to have the children baptized, having them affirm their own faith in Christ and their commitment to raise their children in the faith and teach them of their need to make a personal confession of faith.

Here's a short video of this:

The oldest person baptized was a white-haired man (you don't see too many of those around here!) who recently confessed faith in Christ. He's on the left in this picture, being baptized by Pastor Alou.

Another of the baptisms.

Freshly baptized mom and baby.

It was a particular joy to me that grandma Nyibol was baptized along with the little granddaughter she is raising, Awut, and a grandson whom she is also now raising. They are shown on the right in the picture below.



Nyibol is a very courageous, determined woman. Her teenage daughter-in-law died in October, shortly after giving birth to Awut. Then in December one of Nyibol's adult daughters, who was eight or nine months pregnant, died, leaving little Luka without a mother. So Nyibol decided to take on the responsibility of raising Luka in addition to Awut.

Nyibol has been attending the Parot church since coming to live in the village in November. She has been really touched by the care shown to her by women from the church and has benefited greatly from the worship and preaching. She made a profession of faith and requested to be baptized.

Colouring

The kids in my class, even the teens, love colouring. I think it's safe to say that almost none of them had even heard of crayons before coming to Cush Christian School.












They have worksheets that they fill out as part of each lesson, using crayons for certain parts and a pencil for others. If we finish a little early, they enjoy having time to do more colouring of the lessons they've completed.



The crayons are set out in containers, sorted according to colour, at the front of the room. The kids come up and take crayons as they need them.

The day I took these pictures these two girls had decided to write down a song that was on the blackboard instead of colouring.

The Walk to School

It's now been four days since I began a new adventure in my career--serving for a season as a teacher at Cush Christian School (CCS). The school year here starts in February and ends late November/early December.

I teach the equivalent of grade 1, assisted by a local teacher, and have a class of 32 students ranging in age from (approximately) 6 to 16. No doubt I'll be posting pictures of them during the months to come, but for today, I'd like to share a few from the 12-minute walk I take every morning from my house to the school.



I leave home around 7:30, just as the sun is rising. The past days there have been quite a few clouds and the sunrises have been lovely. What a treat to enjoy the changing sky as I walk. The sun rises (and sets) quite quickly here because we're not too far north (relatively speaking) of the equator.

Most of the children who attend CCS come from my village, so I'm usually walking behind, in front of or among some of them.



I love how the four small boys in the picture above have their arms around each other's shoulders.



Almost there!

The kids I was behind have arrived, and I'm almost at the gate. The school is the building with the blue roof. It is located on the same property as Weer Bei radio station and Crossroads Training Centre, two other very important aspects of my team's work.