User-agent: * Disallow: / ~*bean*~

~*bean*~

[ Tuesday, November 04, 2003 ]

 

Sunday School

I can't believe I'm blogging when I should really be catching some sleep! All of you who gave me guilt trips should now be happy! It's all good; I've been meaning to blog for a couple of days now, but alas...no time. *sigh*

Yesterday's halaqa was awesome as usual (Why does yesterday seem so long ago?). As usual, we started off reading al-Ratib al-Shahir from The Prophetic Invocations by Imam al-Haddad. We talked about what improvements we're making during Ramadan. Then we each made a list of people we pray for: our family, others we pray for regularly, and people who are deceased. All the lists are going to be combined and we're going to try to pray for everyone on that list during at least Ramadan. We then watched the beginning portion of The Lives of the Human Being (Part 1, Dar al-Islam, 1999) during which Shaykh Hamza introduces the five stages of life and explains the first life--the Pre-Worldly Period--"Mithaaq". During this period, all the prophets took an oath to tell their people about the last prophet (Prophet Muhammad pbuh), and every single soul was brought out onto the valley of Nu'man, where they testified to the truth of Allah as their Lord. We discussed the first life from the book, The Lives of Man, also by Imam al-Haddad. [Sana, I'm sorry but I don't think that I'll be able to type up all the notes and post them each week. I don't think I can do the material justice. Insha Allah, I'll post what part of the book we went over and what media we used, and maybe you can follow along. This week�s homework is reading p. 15-22 (The 2nd life-�Dunya�-from �In the Womb� section to �Maturity� section. Next week we have a quiz on the prologue and the 1st life sections.].

During halaqa, my sis and I got recruited to teach Sunday school at the masjid. Alhamdulillah, many children come to Sunday school and are grouped by age and understanding, usually with about ten students or less per teacher. The regular teacher for one of the ages 4-7 children group is moving away, and yesterday was her last day. It was all pretty sudden, so there was no one to replace her on such short notice. The auntie who asked us to fill in for the teacher is the mother of brother who leads the brothers' halaqa (Wow that sounds confusing, huh!). She runs Sunday school. Masha Allah she's so active and it's because of her that our community is what it is today. How can anyone say no to a person like her? Plus, she just had to remind us that it�s not enough to learn from halaqa; we need to teach it to others as well.

I have to admit I really didn't want to teach the class, but I couldn't say no to someone so much older than me who I have a lot of respect for, especially since she really needed someone. So, we went for halaqa and ended up staying another two hours to teach the class. Can you say overwhelming! The regular teacher was there to hand us papers, to clue us into what books are being used, and to give us last minute advice. And that's it. We're on our own now. We're now responsible for teaching these children about Islam. Such a huge and scary task. We're teaching about nine kids...It's funny because we can already pinpoint the know-it-alls, the smart-alecs, and the shy ones. I can't help but especially like Mustafa, a quiet, well-mannered, mature little guy...It seems like he�s mentally trying to piece everything together to fit his understanding�or maybe he�s just deep in thought wondering who we are and how we ended up teaching the class. I wish someone would also enlighten me on that! It�s fun though�.I love how all the kids are encouraged to say, �Masha Allah!� after each kid recites the Arabic alphabet by heart. Masha Allah they�re so cute! The coloring books and stories remind me of my own childhood. We�re also going over Surah al-Fatihah, line by line, trying to help them memorize it as well as a general sense of the meaning in English. I didn�t realize how difficult it is to explain the meaning of al-Fatihah until I had to do so to the kids. And man, kids have such short attention and memory span! I wish things didn�t have to be so rigid with memorization, but I guess it�s important for them to start that early. I noticed that it�s important to be firm with the kids otherwise they�ll walk all over you, but insha Allah we plan to be gentle with them as well...not intimidating and harsh. Insha Allah we�ll be more organized and firm next weekend�I hope we don�t have to deal with any parents. I hope the kids and their parents will be patient with us because we�re obviously new to this and are learning ourselves.

Yeah, so now I feel pretty stressed over all the things I�ve committed myself to�Sunday school, halaqa, joint monthly halaqas, the MSA, the �event,� and volunteering at Kaiser. If people ask me for help, alhamdulillah I�ll help them even when things get difficult for me. I don�t know how or why, but people always seem to come to me when they need some help. I guess I should stop groaning now and consider it a blessing instead. Afterall, now I get to color with little Muslim kids!

0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment