A Heart FULL of Thanks.

Thanksgiving.... Rwanda style. I was a little nervous about how this holiday would be for me, as it is my first Thanksgiving away from my family, and let be serious- I'm pretty far away. I think this week leading up to today was harder than today. I should have known our incredible providing Lord would pull through and prove yet again to me how amazing He truly is and how much He cares for anyone when they do His work. Like I said, the past few days it's been slightly depressing for me, thinking about spending the holiday with a half of day of work and dinner with people I've only known a few months. But, today has been nothing but wonderful. It started out with a text from my boss announcing it a "jeans day" - awesome! Then as I got to school I realized that of course I wouldn't want to spend my morning any other way than with the 17 incredible little blessings that are my precious students. I felt so full of joy as they came in and I told each one how thankful I was for them. Then an awesome mom came in and surprised us with a fruit turkey! See the picture below, it's adorable. We spent the morning watching Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving with the first graders, making handprint turkeys and talking about what we were thankful for. Their responses to what they were thankful were priceless- God, Jesus, family, friends, Miss Merz, sick people, grace, our hearts, our school- just to name a few.

This afternoon a family opened up their home to about 30 people from the community including singles, couples, and families. It was so comforting to enjoy a meal with these incredible people of all ages and join in encouraging conversation with them. Not to mention the food! There was so much and it was all so good! We even had 2 turkeys! Turkey is very hard to find and extremely expensive. One family brought their's from the states in their carry-on, ha!
And the fun continues, tonight I have another Thanksgiving gathering of Americans and skype date with my parents and family in Wisconsin- so so blessed I am and so so thankful I am for these countless blessings in my life!

A fruit turkey! Made by an awesome mom from
my class. 

Kindergarten and 1st grade movie morning 

Lower El staff in our fall colors 

It's not Thanksgiving in Kindergarten without handprint
thankful turkeys. 

Fall leaves!! (Compared to the African green ones in the background)
Thanks Jody Tobias for sending them! :)

Aaaaaand I wrote this post last Thursday and I've been trying to upload a sweet video of my kids singing a thanksgiving song, but alas Africa wins this one- it took way to long to upload so I've given up. Maybe another day!

One last note! I have a Christmas wish! Printing photos here is pretty expensive so I want to ask for everyone to print a picture from your favorite memory we have together, maybe write a little note about it, and mail it to me. You can send it to...
Kelsey Merz
Kigali International Community School
B.P 6558
Kigali, Rwanda

Thanks, Friends!

Spirit Week and Accreditation Celebration!

I think sometimes I can do a better job telling about my life here through the pictures I take, rather than writing. So, this post I will dedicate to this past week's spirit week and my precious students' creativity. Last week was not only spirit week but also the grand opening of our brand new library and accreditation ceremony. Last year our school was finally approved for accreditation recommendation and NOW we are accredited! Wahooo! On Friday, the whole school had a ceremony in celebration, while it was very meaningful and special to me and many others, I knew this hour long ceremony of speeches and recognitions wouldn't be as appreciated by my kindergarteners. I was concerned that they might get pretty antsy, but they did great! It may have helped that I gave them each a piece of string to play with in their hands, but I am so proud of them. After the ceremony everyone got cupcakes and sodas... you can only imagine how the afternoon went from there. ;)

Here are some highlights from Spirit week...

 Twin Day!

I think everyone wished they could be twins with these girls.
They even had sparkle hair spray in their hair! 

"I think I look like Mr. Maxwell." 

Pajama Day!

Wacky Tacky Day :)

 I let my kids do my hair... 

And on Friday we had our official Accreditation Ceremony. This is me leading my class through our brand new library!