Time to Celebrate

CGA's 8th grade class finished their national exams Thursday morning and celebrated the special occasion with an overnight party. The exams had begun on Tuesday with Math, English, Cand Composition. On Wednesday they took exams in Science, Kiswahili and Kiswahili Composition. Finally, Thursday they took an exam with 60 Social Studies questions and 30 Christian Religous Education questions (mostly from the Bible). Except for the compositions, all of the other exams are mutliple choice ones in Primary School. They were sitting their exams at the same time as about 800,000 other 8th grade students throughout the country of Kenya. The students feel very good about how they performed on their exams and their teachers are very confident that their results will be good. They will have to wait until the end of December to see the outcome. Then, in January, they will find out which secondary schools they will be selected to attend.

As is tradition at CGA, the 8th graders hosted an overnight party on the final day of exams. They did all the planning and organizing of the party which included roasting a goat and preparing a nice meals for their invited guests (mostly teachers and CGA staff) and even buying presents and making cards for their teachers. After the excellent meal they presented the gifts and cards and then had a short time for speeches which were hard to hear because of the rain pounding on the roof made of iron sheets. The group then moved to the office to play some games and watch a movie (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). Around 2:00 am everybody went up to the field for a bon-fire. Around the fire, the group sang songs, prayed and had a time for testimonies when several students shared what God had done in their lives. Then they watched another movie (Prince Caspian) before the closing sermon and clean-up after daybreak. It was a memorable night for the 8th grade students and staff at CGA.

Please remember these children in your prayers as they anxiously await their results. Pray for their success and for the future schools they will be selected to attend. The December holidays are a challenging time when many of these 8th grade students across the country get off track. They stay so focused and busy in the months leading up to their exams and so it becomes difficult when they are finished. They now have much time on their hands and they feel they are old and sometimes begin experimenting in negative activities. Pray that our kids will fill their time with positive activities like spending time with God, helping around the house, helping at school and church, playing sports and preparing themselves for the next step in their lives.

After an entire night of celebrating a jumped on the ferry and then rode the bus to Nairobi. I made it in time to watch the last three quarters of the International Schools High School Girls Basketball final in which Steve and Judi's daughter, Bea, was playing in. Unfortunately they lost a close one, but I was happy to get my first chance to watch her play. Saturday we drove out with Steve, Judi and Jenny to Rift Valley Academy in Kijabe and watched their production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We travelled back to Mbita on Sunday to prepare for the end-term exams at CGA.