We brought up a lot of concerns at the meeting and spent a good part of the time lifting up prayer requests that we felt were burdening our hearts as we tried to envision the school year starting. Our main concern at this point is the heat and lack of air flow in the sanctuary building…it is stifling in there, even with the windows opened. Three of us teachers went in the buidling the other day around 8am to sort through some boxes. Before long, Shakinah was so drenched in sweat and feeling so overheated that she decided to leave the building and jump in the pool with her clothes on! (Thankfully it is clean again). Lindsay felt so hot she almost passed out and had to go lay down to keep herself from fainting. We do have plug-in fans, but they blow hot air, and in order to use the bathroom or get water (for teachers and students) you have to go outside and walk a ways in the mud to get across to the base facilities. Things are in progress for a walkway from the classrooms to the base, but even so, with the heat we’ll be working in, I can’t imagine two water breaks a day sufficing for the students. These are not ideal conditions for us to teach in, let alone for our students to stay focused and learn in.
All 6 of our teachers gathered today and prayed to the Lord for an air conditioning system. This is something that has been in discussion for awhile, but has never been a priority on the base. We will be holding classes in the hot sanctuary building at least until January of ’09 and while the AC would benefit our school as long as we’re there, it will will also be a blessing for all future services held in the building after we’re gone (including the DTS that will run for 5 months, beginning this January). We decided to believe in faith that the Lord would provide the system, the money for it, and the workers to install it. A good AC system for this particular building would cost between $3,500-5,000 and would take about two days to install. As we prayed for the AC funds to come in this morning, two teachers felt urged to give out of their personal support funds and donate $500 each. That’s a thousand dollars already knocked out!
There are other things we are in need of, but the AC is our biggest priority at this time. have been looking into school uniforms for the students and even wrote a letter explaining our situation to a uniform company, trusting the Lord would put that letter in the right hands. We already have two bean bags for a reading corner (from my old 4th grade classroom at LAMS) and we are praying for a couch or two to be added as well. Most of our library books were destroyed in the flood so we are also praying for more donated books to go towards the library.
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