Thank you to everyone who has been waiting for an update on the school. As with everything to do with the year 2020 my last days on site and my early visit home have been different than normal. We had a lot going on at the school as I tried to leave because the Tanzania government changed the date the school would close by 2 weeks. This meant a second end of year test for the last week of school and moving the previous scheduled end of year test up a week to an end of month test. I could not extend until the end of school because my 90 days in country at one time were about up when I was scheduled to leave. Because I gave out the Christmas gifts as the school was preparing for tests, we gave out the gifts showing them what they got and asked they play with everything after they got home. So no great smiling photos of the students looking at what they got. Another change were the crocheted or knitted wash clothes we normally give every student. I was only able to carry 40 over with me in my luggage from the generous donations I got from churches far and wide. We gave those to students who specifically have not received a wash cloth before. I have the others and will take them over in groups as I may have to return home every 90 days depending on what the Coronavirus does next.

So on to what you really want, pictures of the kids with their gifts that I was able to take. First a picture of what they got. All students got a coloring book, pack of crayons, a tennis ball or squeak ball depending on age, toy cars with pull strings to make them go, toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, 5 exercise books, 2 pencils, eraser, pencil sharpener, ruler, a new book bag, a new water bottle, stocking cap and a pair of nail clippers.

In addition those students moving from Pre-Unity into Standard I got their own “100 Best Loved Bible Story” books used during devotions at the school. Students advancing from Standard III to Standard IV got a full English language Bible so they can start to get into more of the bible than just the Bible Stories.

You may ask why the nail clippers, water bottle or stocking cap. Well that is because I get tired of seeing our students trim their nails with a razor blade as is the norm for kids even as young as our Baby Class. When I found them in town and how cheap they were I never thought twice about adding them. Getting them for all our students and teachers was about $21. The stocking caps don’t make sense unless you live here and see that even in temperatures close to 100 degrees they still wear their sweater and stocking cap. So getting one for every student puts our students who can’t afford them on a more even level with those that can. The water bottles is something we have wanted for a while but both availability and getting them to understand the importance was difficult until COVID 19. Normally they all share a cup at the water station without cleaning it. It has bothered medical people from the USA who have visited and it has bothered me. But sometimes something good comes from a pandemic and one of those was that water bottles started showing up at the place I purchase in bulk for the school and the school was ready to enforce that each student would only drink out of their water bottle.

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I don’t have pictures from giving the teachers their gifts this year, but instead of bookbags and pens/pencils we stocked their rooms with boxes of pens and pencils, extra rulers, new blackboard erasers and gave all the staff a 25 kg bag of rice and 2 kg of sugar. They all got water bottles, stocking caps, nail clippers, soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes and Kiswahili daily devotion books (some of the staff don’t speak English).

In case you are interested in helping with the costs for these Christmas gifts I have given you a breakout of the costs of major items and a link to contribute to the Christmas Gift fund. Warning this is through my personal Paypal and I will direct all contributions to this fund with names and amount to Blessed2BlessU Ministries, Inc.