The Move

Last Saturday our team moved from our temporary rental housing to our permanent housing. The move was successful and went smoother and faster than we could have imagined. As we begin to live and enjoy this new space we continue to marvel at the beautiful haven the Lord has blessed us with.

This is the Masso house. I did not include any pictures of the inside, but if you were to enter you would fine four small bedrooms and a center room for sitting and family gatherings.

This is Bethany and my temporary bedroom until our dukul is finished. Then this space will become the sitting room for Christine and Larissa's dukul. It is quite cozy and I am thankful for the transition from a dirt floor to a cement floor.

This is Larissa's peaceful personal haven.

This is our shared bathroom space. To the left behind the purple towel one would find our choo (or hole in the ground). To the right is our bathing room.

This is our lovely kitchen. For the last year and a half the team has been cooking in tight quarters. We constantly played bumper cars walking in and out as the doorway only fit one person at a time. Now we can move freely around the beautiful island you see and mulitple people can be cooking or washing without being in eachothers way.

This is our dinning area. We will continue to eat all together like one big happy family.

This is our chill/hangout area. And again we can all fit comfortably.

Our new housing reminds me of summer camp. We are surrounded by trees and our sleeping quarters are separate from our bathing and eating quarters. Fun times!

Just the Beginning

Our first teacher training seminar was a success. We had 3 packed days full of lessons, discussions, questions, laughter, singing, creative application, and much more. Going into this training I had no idea what to expect, I was just hoping people would show up. Out of the 20 teachers that were invited we had a turnout of 14, which was a great number. This training was unique in that Bethany and I didn’t just offer practical advice on teaching methods or try to come up with solutions for challenges that teachers face here. We believe that change is only possible through Christ and therefore we shared the hope of the Gospel and how it is through the Gospel that we can overcome obstacles, see ourselves and our students through new eyes, and live out the truth of Jesus believing that change and transformation are possible through Him. The teacher’s responses were incredible. We had great discussions about how we are created in God’s image, how we can show love to our students, how to discipline students in a way that shows love and grace, and how to have hope in Jesus no matter what lays before us. At the end of the 3 days we had a closing ceremony where a few people shared comments to wrap things up. One of the students spoke as a representative for all the participants and gave many words of appreciation ending on the note that they are thirsty for more. I am also thirsty for more because I too learned so much from these amazing teachers about what it is like to be an educator in Mundri. I look forward to seeing what other opportunities the Lord places before us in this area of teacher training. I believe this was just the beginning!

Bethany and I took turns teaching and leading discussions. Above I am drawing an illustration to help teachers understand what discipline entails.

We had the teachers go through a small obstacle course before we began discussing what obstacles we face as teachers.

At the end of the 3rd day we had all the participants create a visual aid to bring back to their schools and use to share what they learned at the training.

Protocols

This week in partnership with the Episcopal Church of Sudan, Bethany and I are holding a 3 day Teacher Training Seminar. Because Bethany and I are new to the seminar scene here in Mundri we were very careful to talk with the necessary people about opening day protocols. For example, it is proper protocol to have the Bishop or his representative open the seminar with a short message and prayer. Our start today ended up being a bit delayed because the representative we thought was coming, forgot. But luckily people here always seem capable of preparing on the spot when asked, so a new representative was appointed. So by 10:45am we were all aplauding after the official announcement was made that the seminar is now open. Once it was official we moved on to job assignments. Bethany and I joked that these assignments reminded us of job titles in small groups, i.e. the timer, recorder, presenter, etc. However, the jobs assigned for our seminar were very new to me. I will list some below because they make me smile:
The time keeper- When it is time for break he/she rings the bell even if someone is in the middle of talking.
The organizer- is in charge of making sure the classroom is swept.
The Spiritual Leader- Either prays himself for meal time or appoints someone else
The Energizer- If this person notices people knodding off he/she should lead the group in a song
The Lawyer- If someone is not doing their job well the lawyer will have a talking to with them about thier work.
I think it is great that so many are keeping one another accountable and working together. Bethany suggested we incorporate these jobs into our team meetings.