Reaching Brazil's Children at Risk: April classes and Easter fun

Classes are running in full swing now and April brought Easter activities as well. I have half new classes and half continuing students at the Lar Project. I am also going to the younger classes and giving mini lessons in their own classrooms. One class always greets me with, “Welcome to our Classroom Teacher” which is very cute. I brought some candies from the States which are in the shape of numbers, and I had fun using those to reinforce the numbers lessons; I called out a number, the students showed me the correct number, then they could eat it!

Below, students at Vila Andrade doing an alphabet & coloring test.

Easter

The Lar project students also prepared an Easter devotional in English which they gave last week. It was quite a lot of work for the students and teacher, but I believe the audience enjoyed it. We started out singing, “Hallelu, Praise Ye the Lord” and taught each side of the audience to stand up during their turn to sing. Each class prepared a different skit or poem, one class read ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ and some of the girls gave a worship dance to “He is Lord” which was very beautiful.

One of the readings was “The Cross”

Look at the cross. Tell me, what do you see?

Child 1: I see a Savior who died for me.

Child 2: I see a friend who loves and cares.

Child 3: I see the crown in Heaven he wears.

Child 4: I see our Lord, from the grave He arose.

Child 5: I see His face and the love that it shows.

Child 6: I see joy’s symbol; before it I bow.

Child 7: I see the one who is God with us now.

All: Look at the cross. Praise the Lord! Hear us say: God’s blessing came to us on that Easter day.

Afterwards, the students were treated to an Easter party and a guest speaker, a friend from my church, who is Brazilian and who speaks Portuguese. She gave a good talk on the importance of learning English, and helped them understand how blessed they were to be learning English for free at the Lar. I want to get more Brazilian bi-lingual guest speakers in the future to share the importance of learning English, because I believe it has a greater impact on the children than just me telling them how important it is.