73/365

"Ma, me, mi, mo, mu," said my little friend as she read her own handwriting. Then we read the line backwards. Then we read the syllables on cards. Then we mixed them up. I am pretty sure that we got past the point of memorization, and that she really started to put the sound with the symbol. She is learning to read.

Do you remember learning to read? I don't. Of course I know that I wasn't born reading, but it was so long ago...
I can not remember NOT reading.

What started as an evening outreach to minister and teach neighborhood kids with Bible lessons and art projects and computer skills grew when we began to figure out that our kids were coming to us not knowing how to read. Very few of these kids go to school. Several attended classes sporadically for a period of time, but did not finish even 6th grade. A handful are at the neighborhood elementary school but continue to supplement their learning.

Keila and volunteers that she has recruited from the church come daily to sit next to these kids and teach the skills required to pass the test to graduate from primaria, and then from secundaria. We all know that our life changes when we learn how to read. But showing up and sitting together, correcting and encouraging, teaching and motivating, day after day- our hope and prayer is that those things will have eternal value too.