John’s Blog | August 20, 2011

The newsletter this time will be in two parts. This, part 1 will cover activities of August 20, 2011. This is another one of our monthly English Camps. However, we are trying something new this time and it seems to have been very successful.

First, we have added another team, so we now have 4 teams and can handle 80 students at one time. Under the present circumstances we can only do one school per month, but with the increase in the number of students we decided to try to combine schools – this time three – God willing, if things work well and the schools follow through, we can visit these three schools three times during the term instead of just once. Initial reports from the principals and students are that they are very happy with this. Please pray that we can continue to do this.

In addition, God has blessed us by providing an additional 9 University students – First year English majors who want to be teachers. In meeting with them yesterday – two of them went with the English Camp on Saturday – They want to volunteer to do one English Camp a month also. Lord willing, this means we will be able to double our English coverage of the village schools.

The pictures attached ( see below)  are various volunteers in action as they work from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm to teach as well as learn themselves. God has blessed me greatly with these kids. They have reached the point that I can tell them what I want the outcome to be and they decide how and what to teach to get the outcome we are looking for.  We all understand that we are not really teaching English – that cannot be done in 3-4 hours once a month; however, they are teaching the kids that it is okay to try and be wrong sometimes; they are helping the kids to build confidence and destroy the idea that because they are from outlying villages they cannot learn. Pray that it will continue and that they will return to their schools and teach the younger students. The goal is for us to teach grades 4-6 and they go back to their schools and teach grades Kinder-3. Success of our program depends upon this and it doesn’t happen very often.

Prayers determine the success or failure of this program so we covet the prayers of all of you. God Bless and lots of love from all of us here at the Christian Mission.