Books without Borders

Many of you know that my dear friend and co-worker, Julia, left her job teaching in the states to teach in Africa. She is teaching through a program called World Teach. She left the land of plenty at Lamplighter to Namibia where the children have nothing. When I say nothing I literally mean nothing. Julia was amazed at the children's lack of supplies. Her job in Namibia was to teach art and language/reading....here's the kicker she had no books to teach from and no art supplies other than coal but no paper. Needless to say she was a little speechless. I was blown away when I Skyped with Julia and heard that she was teaching in these conditions. Being the ever positive person that she is Julia said, " I found a few pamphlets that I am teaching the reading lesson from and they are drawing on the back of some of the old hand outs they gave me when I arrived." I couldn't imagine! I quickly sent out a mass email to all my friends and was surprised by the response and call to action. I had boxes of books and supplies, I was overwhelmed. I even had offers to pay for shipping! I went to the post office to find out how much it would cost to send all the supplies to Africa and was excited to find out how cheap it was to ship. I quickly packed up the books and shipped them to Julia and her students. I wish I could have been there when they received the package. Julia's description was priceless. She opened the package with her students and she said the whole room screamed...so loud it hurt her ears and a few tears were shed. Many of the students had NEVER seen a book before. She handed each student a book and the rest of the day was spent reading and trading books. I have since sent 3 other packages to Julia to help build a library for her students. I am so proud of the work she is doing and although I could never go to Africa and do what she is doing I feel like I am there with her every time she shares a story about her students enjoying a book.