September 12. Went to bed early last night, tired and cold. Could not seem to get warm so finally, in the middle of the night, I put my bathrobe on too. Also cut up part of an onion and put next to the bed in hopes that I would sleep better and not be coughing. I was thankful that helped.
A little sunshine early this morning and late this afternoon, but very little. Very cool again most of the day with lots of clouds, and damp air. Not too good for colds. A LOT of people are sick with colds, and the weather stays so cool that it is hard to get feeling better. The days are either cool, cloudy, damp, and sometimes rainy; or cool and sunny with strong cold winds.
This was the third day of teaching on remainders in division. The first thing I did was a visual demonstration. Brought a bag of 30 peanuts for them to divide among 9 students. How many would each one get, and how many would be left over? That seemed to help most of them understand what was going on. Bonita still seemed completely lost so I sat by her and helped her through the first couple rows in her lesson. Then I sat while she did a row and told me what she was doing. That seemed to help, and she did the rest by herself and did fine.
We did a lot of review in Social Studies class, and then they started coloring and labeling maps, following instructions in their workbooks.
After school, Esau and Dallas stayed to do a small job. I had them get down the PNG flag for me (it hangs way up high) so we can use it tomorrow in our Independence Day study. Then I had them blow up nine balloons the colors of the flag, or so we thought. Like last time, the “black” balloons turned out to be purple. One of the “black” ones and one of the yellow ones burst. I didn’t have any more of the same kind - long curly balloons - so got out a white and a red regular balloon shaped balloon.
I was thankful to climb under the covers for a nap after dinner and get warm for a while. Afterward I finished grading and recording grades (not too much to grade today), put a pot of rice and soup mix on to cook for supper, and practiced keyboard.
Now Daddy is waiting for the Bible school students and youth to come for Bible school. He is going to try tonight to teach, if he doesn’t cough too much. Maybe he will have the students read parts of the lesson so he won’t have to use his voice as much.
“For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” I Corinthians 2:16
September 13. It wasn’t quite as cold last night so we were thankful for that. The Lord gave us an hour or so of sunshine this morning, and we thought it was going to be a sunny day. But the weather soon changed to cloudy again. Daddy did let the fire go out early afternoon, but started it again late afternoon because the temperature had dropped and the winds were cold.
Everyone seemed to enjoy school today. Our first class was music class. I had them practice writing treble clefs and bass clefs. Then I gave them each parts of a music piece to write on the staff lines on the chalkboard. After that, they did some ear training exercises, played the scale, and each played one of the two song pieces they had been practicing. They all did good so next time I’ll give them a new little song to learn.
The rest of the morning was spent doing things related to Independence Day, which will be Monday. There was a lesson discussing the meaning of independence (it was in English this year - last year we had the lesson in Pdigin), the national flag, national pledge, national anthem, and national emblem. There were blanks on the lesson for them to fill in. I wanted to see how much they remembered about what their flag looked like, so I had the flag taken down until after we finished that part of the lesson. After discussing the meaning of the pledge, they all stood, and Esau led them in the pledge to their flag. Sosthenes led the national anthem after we had discussed it. Then they had recess, and after recess, we talked about the national emblem.
The last part of the lesson covered using the flag for presenting the Gospel. It is absolutely amazing how every part of the PNG flag can be used to present the Gospel. The colors - black, red, white, and yellow (gold); the pictures - the Southern Cross and the bird of paradise; and the design - the division into two parts (black and red), representing two groups of people - those lost in darkness, and those washed in the blood of the Lamb.
After another break, everyone colored pictures of the flag and the national emblem. The students were singing hymns and choruses while they were coloring. It was a joy to listen to them. I took pictures while they were working. Then each of the students got to choose a balloon. I had to draw names to see who would be first since they were all full of me, me, me. Afterward I took a group picture of them with their balloons and coloring pages. Then they tacked their coloring up on the bulletin board. It was close to 1:00 before everyone went home and we had our dinner.
Matthew asked for the section on the Gospel to be translated into Pidgin so I did that this afternoon and printed out copies this evening for Daddy to give to the men in Bible school.
I didn’t have any grading to do this afternoon so that was a blessing.
After translating the section on the PNG flag and the Gospel this afternoon, I went to the kitchen to make lemon sugar cookies for Daddy.
“7So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. 8Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.” I Corinthians 3:7,8