This summer I composed a start to the requested primary curriculum, and sent it out to await feedback. The other main projects of my department were networking and programming, but my job was just keeping tabs on it and giving feedback as Anthony and George worked. It was an incredible relief since I was so preoccupied with the wedding, and moving, and all the house disasters such as those described in my previous post, I couldn't have kept up with more work and my sanity.
As I already mentioned, though, my responsibilities are increasing, as I am needing to fill the role now of communications manager and treasurer. And I've found learning treasury work to be rather tiresome; the steps are not very intuitive, so every task seems harder than it should be. I'm definitely wishing for a real accountant to volunteer to take that over! Please pray in the meantime that I serve our team well and learn what I'm supposed to in this process.
On a brighter note, Anthony returned from a very successful trip to Tanzania. Ray's work skyping with them to explain our model worked so well that for once Anthony trained a group in ten days and knew they weren't overwhelmed; they already understood what about our education makes it different and successful. By God's grace, they hope to start their classes by the end of the month. Anthony also reported that they were very interested in the primary school programming material I was developing--that would be something that nobody else around offers, that could put their school forward as one that really knows what it is doing. Which means I need to make adjustments for it to be self-contained, rather than integrated into a regular primary school, and publish it hopefully within the week.
We were already a small team, weak in many ways, but strong in trust, caring, and experience. Now we're being cut back further, and the people we lost were incredible. But we have no sense from the Lord that we're supposed to pull back. We have faithful partners in Nigeria, a school starting in Tanzania, people asking in Zambia and Tanzania, and we can still serve them. Anthony's leading is still, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," and my reply is still, "Aye sir." Perhaps all we can give them is a start; these eager administrators and teachers will have to carry the transformation on throughout the continent, and they can do it. That's why we've been working all along. God's people in Africa have done wonderful things with education, turning old donated equipment in a little office space into a school that was teaching people better than anywhere and leading them to Christ. And they can do it so much more, if God be with us.
