Small Town USA meets African Bush Village

One week ago a team from Buffalo, MN arrived at the Village of Hope. It is a team of 7 educators. The combined number of years of teaching is over 200. I have known and visited Buffalo for over 35 years since it is where my sister Minda lives, and she is the team leader. Julie has been a principal and three of the team were teachers at the same school. Many of them go to the same church, Zion Lutheran.

These folks are making a great impact here with the teachers at our School of Hope and as they will be leading training for about 140 teachers in the Liteta Zone of the Chibombo District of the Central Province of Zambia.

We are having a great time. I would ask for prayer for Minda whose back went out yesterday and she is in bed for a couple of days. We also need prayer as we begin final preparations and conduct the training on Thursday and Friday.

Open Day, Inset, Conference, Field Day

Talk about a week!!! This week should take the award for action and excitement. This is the last week of school for Term 2. The last day is called "Open Day" because it is the time when the school is open for parents to come and meet the teachers and to see how their child is doing.

Thursday and Friday we are helping to sponsor a 2 day "Inset" or inservice training for all the teachers in the zone. It will be held at Liteta Basic School and we are expecting 170 participants. Our restaurant will be providing all the food. Our education team from MN will be leading most of the workshops. Our kids will be singing the National Anthem.

The team from MN will also be running Field day for our school on Tuesday. They have all kinds of games and activities planned.

And on Wednesday morning at about 1:00am a team of 15 comes to participate in a 3 day conference on Mission and Economic Sustainability.

So the excitement is just beginning for a busy and meaningful week!

Super natural effects

Tomorrow is our annual school program at School of Hope. Since we don't have an indoor space big enough, we are having the program outside. The sun is our floodlight on the stage. The shade of our big trees are the dimming light for the audience. The new slab for our next building is our stage. It is hardly dry, but enough so we can use that. Next year, hopefully, there will be 2 classrooms there, but for now it is working well as a performance stage. The program is at 11:00 am and the sun location is perfect for shining on the stage but not in the eyes of the audience.

There will be songs, poems, "sketches" (skits), readings, a debate, a school wide quiz based on our Study Question and Bible lessons, and the National Anthem sung in 3 languages. You are all invited!!!