What God did While We Were On Vacation

Ngmin-puor (orange shirt) and Kuun-bora, the teachers
in the literacy class at the Pen-zaan church.

I handed out primers and readers at the literacy conference to readers from three villages two weeks ago, and then we went to our West Africa Missionary Retreat.  I told Ngmin-puor (good luck on the pronunciation) from Pen-zaan that we would be back to Dano the first week in May.  I assumed they would wait for instructions or at least some narcissistic part of me assumed that they would try with faltering steps and I would come in to save the day and "fix" their efforts at starting a literacy school in their church when I got back from our retreat.  Before I left for Pen-zaan, we started a new family tradition of my family praying over me before I head out.  I can't remember what everybody prayed, but I think Dylan prayed, "God thank you for living and stuff."  Daniel prayed that I would, "have a good time," and Andrea asked that I would show up in Pen-zaan to find that the class was already underway.  Andrea's faith was rewarded and that is exactly what I found when I got there.

This is how I found the class as I pulled up.  Yes, that's
the Luggage rack of my truck obscuring the view at the
bottom of the picture

I was surprised to see that they were already on lesson 4 and were zooming right along.  I was able to share with them a vision for their being able to use their new skill some day soon for actually studying the Bible in times of prayer.  I also showed them a simple Bible study method for discovering God's truth together with their friends. I am grateful for the lesson God showed me that he can do His work without great effort on my part.

I also appreciated that God allowed me to participate in jumpstarting the literacy program at the 'Yo-ba-gawn church, where I went on Tuesday.  Although they had also received primers at the conference, they had just waited on me to get there and show them how to get started.  I'm also grateful for Rafael Some, who is working with me teaching me just that (how to get started with literacy programs and use the methodology designed for the primers we already have in place).  On Wednesday, the 'Yo-bagawn church had their first literacy lesson.  I participated heavily in teaching it.  It was fun, but I really want to back out some and give Kuun-suor the room to grow into the literacy educator in his church.

Sadly, we had to turn away several people who wanted to participate because we just didn't have enough materials for everyone.  I am currently trying to get an estimate from the publishers this week for how much it would be to publish another 1,000 primers and readers, but right now all we have are 51 divided among three villages (Pen-zaan, 'Yo-bagawn, and Nawile). Please email me or reply to this blog if you would like to contribute to this effort.  I was really touched when one young lady defiantly refused to leave the class even though the class was full because we had no primer to give her.  We didn't try very hard to make her leave, and she sat quietly watching the whole proceeding.  I hope she get's something out of it even though she will not be able to take the primer home and practice.