Becoming Teachers

On Saturday, Sam's dad arrived in Gemena with Kevin Komplien, director of ReachGlobal Africa. They will be in Gemena until the 28^th. They have a variety of meetings during their short visit, but we are glad to see them. They brought with them the curriculum we will be using to teach English at the Elikya Center. Now we have some work to do!

We have begun looking through the curriculum and talking about how we will write up lesson plans, assess students, etc. Our hope is to begin our first week of teaching on September 20^th. A Congolese "Hospitality Team" has been selected for us to train and we are waiting to meet all of them (6 in total). We, along with the Larsens, will teach English to the Hospitality Team first. We know this is a big job for the four of us and we are grateful to be using the Ohanna curriculum for teaching English. Please pray for us in these upcoming weeks as we put time and energy into creating lesson plans and prepare to be teachers (some of us for the first time).

We are also really looking forward to meeting the Hospitality Team and beginning to build relationships with them. Please pray that we connect well with them right from the beginning and that the Lord uses these relationships in a powerful way over the next two years. We look forward to introducing this team to you as well.

'Tis the Season

for rain.

We are right in the middle of the rainy season here in Gemena. This week we bought almost all of the things we will need to start cooking for ourselves here. We needed to wash all of our new kitchen things and Michelle and Sarah decided to take advantage of the free, clean, rain water. We filled up buckets with rain water and started washing and rinsing while sitting at the back of our duplex. It even helped to rinse some things off by sticking them directly under the rainfall. It is important that we use clean water for drinking, cooking, washing dishes and brushing our teeth. Clean water is hard to come by and it takes a while to filter all the water we need through our filter. The huge downpour yesterday came at the perfect time for us to clean our dishes.

This week we have started meeting with some of the leadership here at the Elikya Center and in the church. This is an important time for us to make plans for getting started with our responsibilities and building solid relationships with our co-workers. Please pray that the Lord gives us clear direction and unity.