These
are indeed dark days for Trinidad’s schoolchildren, and I’m not just referring
to the John Major-grey skies overhead in this, the sodden summit of rainy
season. Monday sees Bolivia’s school gates fling wide once again and tens of
thousands of young people are mentally preparing themselves for the academic
year ahead.
At
least they can expect a fairly easy ride for the first few weeks. Because here
in Bolivia, little, if anything, is in place by the time the new session
begins. Monday is also the first day for staff, who will have no timetable to
work with, given that nobody thinks to put together the new timetable before
the summer holidays. What inevitably ensues are a week or two of constant
schedule revisions, while educational opportunities for students are limited to
the playground.
A
further impediment to meaningful progress is the long weekend bingefest holiday of Carnavál, usually just around the corner at this time of year (it
falls on the weekend of Saturday 18th in 2012). For some reason, the festival’s ever-growing presence on the
horizon serves to create a psychological barrier in the minds of educators and
students alike, and nothing of any real significance is accomplished until well
after the holiday.
After
weeks of lesson preparation, I’m raring to get out there and work with students
again (the very thought!) but I shall have to bide my time. There is no point
in going to the local school, where I’m hoping to take some R.E. classes, for a
couple of weeks yet, as it will take time for the dust to settle on the new
timetable.
However,
preparations for the new session of English classes, starting the 28th,
have been well underway for some time now, and this week I’ve taken things up a
gear by getting into town with posters advertising the course, something we
haven’t done in the past. The very act of sticking these posters to the walls
of Trinidad’s retail hotspots in itself has drawn quite a crowd, and I’m
hopeful we’ll have a bigger uptake than ever this year – particularly exciting
given that there’ll be a new ‘Biblical Application’ strand this time around.
Another
new project for 2012 is our intra-staff discipleship and evangelism service. As
a Christian foundation, our number-one concern for the staff is their spiritual
welfare, yet at the moment, little is in place to encourage our staff in this
way. Therefore, as missionaries, we’re looking to make regular personal contact
with staff outside of work hours, in order to support one another better. A
formalised programme is still in the works, but this afternoon Amanda will be
meeting, for the first time, with her fellow audiologist Odalys, who is fair
champing at the bit for some spiritual input in her life.
And
later today, we’ll have the second meeting of 2012 with the youth group, whose
programme for the year kicked off last Saturday. After the customary month or
so off post-Christmas, it usually takes the young people a few weeks to get
back into the rhythm of Saturday evenings, but there were around 40 in
attendance last weekend. Several of these youth are now into a pattern of
meeting individually with us as missionaries for weekly discipleship sessions
and we’re excited to see what God has in store for the youth ministry this year
as they grow in maturity.
Prayer
- Please pray for the new academic year and for the involvement of FT’s educational workers in teaching R.E. classes, particularly that the local schools will be receptive to our involvement.
- For this year’s English classes, that God would bring to the foundation those people whose hearts are fertile soil for the gospel message.
- For Amanda as she begins meeting with Odalys (not a believer) this afternoon.
Praise
- For an initially positive response to the English classes.
- For a good crowd at the first youth meeting of 2012.
¡Que Dios les
bendiga!
Craig & Amanda
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