Kondima and the Taken-out Eye

       Teaching Sabbath school for Class 1 and Kg has been something I have done for the past 15 or so Sabbaths. The first couple weeks were the hardest. I felt like there was so much time to fill and I never knew what to do with it. After those first trial weeks, I finally figured out how much stuff I needed to fill the time and what stuff to take to fill up time if I needed to.

       Something that we started the second Sabbath I was in charge was to tell a continued story. The story of Jungle Thorn; this is the story of a little girl named Kondima who got a thorn stuck in her eye and had to go far from home to get it fixed. The kids love this story. Whenever it gets close to the end of Sabbath school they all shout out “Kondima, Kondima.”

       Last week we were to the part in the story where Kondima arrives back at her village and takes out her fake eye to show all the village people. I can never tell how much the kids here understand, even when there is an interpreter, and nothing was different Sabbath. The kids didn’t react at all when they were told that ‘Kondima took out her eye and all the villagers freaked out.’ Lauren (our Kondima story teller) asked them if they would be freaked out if they saw someone take out their eye, no reaction at all. We spent quite a bit of time explaining to them what exactly had happened to Kondima to make sure they understood it. Finally, we gave up trying to get a reaction out of them and went on with the story.

       Later that evening one of the little boys in our Sabbath school class, Johnny, called me over. He was like, “Heather teacher, Heather teacher. Look I take my eye out.” As he was saying this he held the end of a plastic spoon over his eye and brought it away from his eye. It was so cute! I still don’t know if the kids totally understand what happened to Kondima, but I do know that at least one of them sort of understands, even if he isn’t weirded out by it!
By the way...Happy Valentines Day!