ENCOURAGED BY “DISAPPOINTMENTS”

God did it again…He enabled us to ready all of the test teaching curriculum in time for the training of the test teachers for the 2^nd term of school which started two days later! God provided a young man, Cephas, to do the “heavy” work of getting it all duplicated, while Laura did the “lighter” work of communicating with the businesses/people she has established a relationships and good prices. A number of others came to help with the sorting, counting, and packaging…everything was done by mid afternoon Friday—whew! All encouragements here—no disappointments.

Saturday morning dawned bright and beautiful—rain always hinders participants. Even the people with the keys to the 3 rooms we needed were there on time (which is not as common as what one might wish!) and so all was set up by 8 AM, the established beginning time. Although most arrived later…to be expected in this culture…we had enough to start the program as planned. People seemed eager to learn and participated well. Eventually the room was full—39 was the official count—the most ever for a training. All encouragements here—no disappointments.

Generally speaking the training went well and smoothly. After the final prayer time, we asked to meet with the upcountry people, 11 of them from the five “rural” regions of Scripture Union—two of them had traveled all night to get here and then returned that evening. Among other things, we wanted to try to encourage them to consider recruiting other volunteers so that six test VEC (Values Education Class) could be conducted in each Region (our feedback/evaluation from rural areas has not been very strong to this point). Our expectation was they would be reticent to take on any more beyond themselves. BUT…what we learned was they already had volunteers and schools lined up waiting for the curriculum…and they were disappointed that we could only allot six sets of curriculum per Region. Wow, we were SO encouraged by their expression of disappointment! It seems God has been at work in these regions and there is more interest/eagerness than we thought! “Thank you, Lord, for this encouragement…but we do ask that each set of curriculum will indeed be used and  evaluation returned to us!”