Saturday Post -- 19/02/11

Last year, one of the first significant moves we made in our ministry was to launch free English classes for beginners at FT. The classes began in June with big numbers in attendance and, over the proceeding months, we helped an ever-diminishing, though committed, bunch of people pick up the basics.

As the months progressed, lessons were learned along the way, mostly by the teachers. For one thing, organising free classes was a pleasant enough idea in theory, but in practice it engendered a lack of commitment from those who were scared off by the first few lessons (which, admittedly, were a little too hasty for this culture -- that's been rectified this year). For another, splitting the course into two modules didn't go far enough. Don't ask me why, but Bolivians love their certificates of achievement, so the more smaller modules into which we could divide the year, the better.

Adding to the frustration of last year was that by the time we took on board such key cultural pointers, it was usually far too late. Therefore, with an earlier, February start date this year, we spent December and January making big revisions to the course structure and working out a fair, affordable price for the classes -- in the end, it simply covered the cost of students' writing materials.

So a lot was riding on Wednesday and Thursday, when, respectively, the Elementary and Basic classes kicked off (these are the 2nd and 1st levels of proficiency recognised by TEFL). All the work of the past few weeks wouldn't count for much if we didn't have greater demand. We spent a good part of the last week praying hard. This time last week I had absolutely no idea how things would turn out.

Well, to paraphrase Harold Wilson, a week is a long time in education, and I can happily report that we had a terrific week with the classes. 8 people, most complete strangers to us, turned up for the Elementary class, with a few more expected next week. But the Basic class was particularly incredible, with a steady stream of students taking us well past my planned limit of 20, to the extent that we had to lock the door at one point to stop the numbers increasing any further.

We're thrilled to see the way God has graciously blessed this ministry, in which we hope that, ultimately, the educational side of things will eventually provide avenues to share the gospel message.

Further encouragement came this week in the form of our visa application. We'd managed to land our Interpol certificates last month, one of several items required to be submitted to La Paz. The cost of this single bit of paper proved to be a stack of photocopies, lawyers' letters etc. and this week, we managed to secure two more certificates which, in themselves, demanded so much paper that Bolivia should be grateful it's a landlocked country -- otherwise the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior would be on to us in no time. It was a bumpy road, not made any easier by unbridled hostility towards white people from certain quarters, but we got there in the end and by next weekend we should have our complete visa application submitted, about a week before the deadline.

Amongst all this, Amanda has managed to juggle her Audiology commitments and is quickly getting to grips with new equipment which has recently arrived at FT. I had the Community classes again this week, where again we saw a big hike in the numbers in attendance.

Prayer
• For Craig as he leads next week’s morning meditations on Galatians.
• For the welcome challenge of the increased administrative burden placed upon us by the increase in numbers. Pray also for our relationships with students and opportunities to share the gospel.

Praise
• For the enthusiastic response to the classes.
• For significant visa progress this week – God-willing, this will be the last of it for two years.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda