Whirlwind of training…

I have been challenged about many things of late: one of the main things being to use my gifts to serve the poor. After much prayer, persistence and persuasive talking I have managed to train about 280 teachers from 52 primary schools over the past month. The peak of all this training was four workshops held in the four divisions of the municipal here, organised by the local schools inspector and the head teachers’ association. Contrary to local cultural expectations, there was no ‘sitting allowance’ or ‘transport allowance’ (money) given to teachers for attending – one of the perks they had grown accustomed to from post-war rehabilitation work. In spite of this, I received a phenomenal response from many primary schools and have been swamped with offers to visit schools and do follow-up training and further support the teachers who attended. The Municipal Education Officer (top dog for the town schools here) even offered me an office if I return… tempting offer). Although my time is coming to an end for this season of our life I feel extremely grateful that I have been able to hopefully make some small difference in these local schools. I pray these local teachers will continue with the work, that these children will learn to read and write and money will not remain a barrier to education here.