My favorite part of the school year-competitions and Christmas presents for the students and staff. A couple of years ago, I did pictures of all our kids missing their front teeth as they transition between baby and regular teeth. This year I noticed one of my big smilers was a little hesitant and finally got her to grin and saw she was missing her two front teeth and I immediately thought of that song again. Princess is looking forward to getting those teeth back and showing a big toothy grin. You may see some more in the pictures missing their two front teeth as well.

You may remember that I talked about our bags this year being part of our “business ministry” where we purchased bags made locally to help support the local economy. This year also was a big change for me personally as I turned over the Christmas shopping and putting the bags together over to the staff at the school. One big change that brought on is the difference in work philosophies between myself and the staff. I believe the kids should get the bags, receive the gifts and just enjoy so I would spend a week putting everything together by myself because the staff would never volunteer to help. This year with them in charge it meant they supervised the Standard 6 class while they put the gift bags together. 

This year the gifts themselves were much the same. Soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, exercise books, pencils, erasers, crayons, art book, tennis ball, nail clippers, water bottle, and hand crocheted wash cloth. Instead of a toy they gave all the students a pair of athletic shorts and shirt. Pre-Unity got the Bible story books used for devotionals and Standard 4 got the full Bible. Staff got a sack of rice, small sack of sugar, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, pens, journal book and hand crocheted wash cloth. 

The 250 wash clothes were donated by Mauldin Methodist Friendly Yarns and Tabitha’s Hands from Mountain Rest Baptist Church and myself as I try to work through my mom’s yarn stash. And yes I am already collecting them for next year’s Christmas gifts so I can get them over in my luggage. In 2024 I will need around 280-300 wash clothes.

And yes we are a Christian school and still do daily morning devotionals and weekly bible studies for our students. This year we once again provided Bible story books to our students that are graduating Pre-School into the Standard Grades and English Bibles for our students moving to Standard 4.

So please look through all the pictures from this special day. For all those that help make this day possible, THANK YOU!!!! I might even say Asante na Tembo!! which means Thank you an Elephant.