Beat the Drum part 2
...
The 120 Beat the Drumers got split up into 5 teams. I was on the Aeroville High School team.
Aeroville High School Day 1 (Monday) – We showed the movie to six hundred 8th and 9th graders. It went off without a hitch. The sound worked, the projector worked, Hallelujah!Day 2 (Tuesday) – We drove to Aeroville ready to teach and discuss lesson one of the curriculum. Imagine our shock when we pulled up to a completely empty school (cricket, cricket, empty). It turns out the teachers had gone on strike that morning in protest of the newly appointed principal. Aeroville is Africaans, the new principal was Xhosa. Politics.
I felt so defeated. We had worked so hard to be in Summerset East, and now we had no children to talk to. The locals on our team kept saying that nothing like this had ever happened before in Summerset East. (And it's true; the whole town was talking about it, we became known as the school without students.) We finally (after much prayer), decided to go visit the Aeroville boarding students who lived in hostels next to the high school. I was only able to speak briefly with three students before they were called inside for lunch.Day 3 (Wednesday) – My team piled into the vans not knowing weather we'd find children in class or not. Drove in. No kids. Empty School. Cricket, cricket.
So, we traipsed over to the hostels again. I sat down with five girls who (once they learned I didn't know Chris Brown, or live next to any celebrities in the States) got up and walked away. All but one that is. Akona stayed. Akona's in 9th grade and had seen the movie on Monday. She stayed because she wanted to talk more about some things she'd seen in "Beat the Drum". We ended up discussing ways to deal with pressure to sleep around, and the value of abstaining until marriage. Akona has so many plans and goals for her future, she wants to become a social worker among other things. We talked about how much strength and courage she'll need to accomplish her dreams, but she got quiet when I brought up God. Then the lunch bell rang.Related Blogs
My Bio
Hi! Thanks for looking at my blog. Things that you may or may n...
Happy New Year!
Hello All, Let me just dive right in – The Christmas season tripled...
Clinic Update
Yesterday, we received 49 boxes of stock. My shoulders are still sore.&nbs...
Related Races (3)
Latin America | Semesters | January 2027
Central America + Indonesia | Semesters | August 2026
