Today’s lesson: pure, kindly and radiant hearts.
The children’s class started at 3:00pm, to give the leftover crowd time to finish their conversations and return home. We managed to make copies of the colouring pages earlier, using the Centre’s photocopier, and everything else was pretty much taken care of. After a few prayers by the parents (awesome!), we started by singing not one but two songs—”O God Guide Me” in French, and “His First Counsel Is This”, the song that goes with that particular lesson. Having practiced both songs, we presented the lesson (pure, kindly and radiant hearts) and worked on memorizing the quote of the week, and I put the words on my laptop as a memorization aid. We spent a little more time on memorization since … related to me that one of the mothers was hoping there would be more of it, for their child to practice with (she confirmed this at the end of the class).
Afterwards, we told the story of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá emptying a lady’s glass and filling it up. We quizzed the kids to make sure they understood, and they passed admirably. We had a short water break, which allowed us to segue into the game—”The Burning Thirst”, in which they used their outstretched arms to help each other drink from cups of water. Everyone loved it, I think. Finally, we ended off with colouring, having to cut things short at 4:30 (thankfully, I remembered to watch the clock this time). It seemed everyone was appreciative and happy with the progression of the class. At one of the parents’ suggestion, I said I would begin to prepare handouts for the parents to use for practice after each children’s class, to help their children learn the lessons at home. Something really tells me this is going to be the best children’s class I’ve ever taught, at least in terms of interaction with parents. I think the big clincher is that we have the strength of several people in our teaching team working with the parents, and that the job of teaching and following up doesn’t all rest on one person—we can support each other in bringing more and more people into our community of interest.
That’s it for now—glad to be able to report on such a wonderfully productive day. We go through crisis and victory, and I feel as though Saturday was a big victory for us. Here’s wishing us all blessings and confirmations from the Blessed Beauty in our continuing efforts to teach and serve.