A change of Mindset

When you go as a missionary to a foreign country, you have to adapt to the new culture and work accordingly.   Likewise, I am going to have to adapt to a new culture.   Instead of carefully planning the programme to get the most out of every 15 minutes, I must realise that although Guides starts at 3.30pm, I will never be able to start before about 4.10.  
I had planned to make mosaic crosses with the Guides in preparation for Easter.   I realised that I had been setting my standards too high.   Instead I would spend most of the meeting testing each Guide and making sure she was ready for the Enrolment. 
Sure enough there were no girls at 3.45.   I had put up the flagpole myself.   Jeanette and Samkelisiwe arrived first with John and who I thought was Mitah, the driver’s children.  (The driver, Saul, is Jeanette’s brother).   There was no sign of Stella, who was supposed to come in the combi with Jeanette and Sam.  I thought that John, who is about 5, would be much happier across the road at the orphanage where there is a play area with swings.   Well, I thought wrong.   After arranging with the carers at the orphanage to leave him there, I sent Jeanette and Sam back while I waited for Laizah to finish her lunch and show me her room.   Well, John ran into the road and stopped when he saw me running after him and screamed.   I picked him up bodily to get him off the road and he screamed even more as I carried him to the pavement.   I didn’t know what to do.   One of the carers calmed him down and ascertained that he wanted to stay with Jeanette.   So I had to give in.
So, already feeling stupid, I got Jeanette and Sam to get out the patrol boxes and clean up for inspection.   Laizah came soon after and we went outside for the opening.   I did inspection with the three girls and I broke the flag with Jeanette and Sam as escorts.
I was impressed with the way the girls are trying to look neat and tidy.   They are using the shoe polishing kits and nail brushes that are in each patrol box.   I talked a bit about Easter, asking the girls if they knew anything about it.   They just looked at me blankly.   I went into a brief summary of the gospel and the fact that Jesus died for us so we can have a relationship with God and have eternal life.   I explained that the egg is a symbol of new life so we were going to make tiny Easter eggs.
We went inside to start melting chocolate and Maria arrived.   She at least knew about Easter and could even quote John 3:16.   I asked Mitah how old she was to decide if she would join us in the programme.   Jeanette said “That’s Amanda”   I couldn’t believe it.   I know that I am bad with faces but I didn’t even recognise my own Guide, that I had gone to visit last week and that I had bought a pair of denims for when I found out that she, too, didn’t possess a pair of jeans.   Because she had arrived with John, I had assumed she was his sister, Mitah.   Admittedly, they do look similar, even though there is more than 2 years difference in age.
Mitah is in the middle.   The other two pictures are both of Amanda.
I tried to laugh off my stupidity by mentioning that I was going to be 60 this year and my memory is not what it was.   Sigh.
Despite these ineptitudes of mine, I think the meeting was a success.   Four of the girls can now say the promise and have a good idea of what the law entails.   Only Sam, who has just recently joined us, and Stella who didn’t come will have to be enrolled next term.   I told them that if I couldn’t sign off each clause of the Trefoil challenge, they couldn’t be enrolled next week.   They tried.   They worked together as patrols.  I have a bit more hope for them.
The chocolate Easter eggs were a great success. It didn’t take long for each girl to fill one mould with chocolate and the orphanage allowed us to use the fridge. .
Surprisingly, the scooby doo was also a hit.  For the same girls who couldn’t make a clove hitch after 5 tries last week, to be able to tie the scooby doo knot was quite impressive. It was one of the options to do during patrol time along with colouring in the flag or decorating the patrol box.

Well next week is enrolment.   Here’s hoping all the arrangements come together.   Most of them are out of my control.   Bertha needs to arrange with the driver to pick up not only the girls but also their guests, she has to organise with the orphanage to provide us with tea and eats.   Annette (my district commissioner) is coming to enrol the girls and I hope we can get going early so she can get home before the traffic.   Please pray for all the arrangements.