Children's TOT (part b)

One of the many "tent cities" in Port-au-Prince. This is a small one covering a town square; we passed it daily on our way to the training site.
One of the small groups demonstrated ways to get kids engaged in project planning -- here is their drawing of a reforestation program.

Another small group draws a neighborhood clean-up project.
Groups practiced using skits as "starters" to discuss community problems with children. This skit is about cholera.
A "starter" showing steps to community development. The last step is "aksyon," or action. Many others tend to start at this step, but we think that unless the programs are truly community-owned from the very beginning (the first four steps) they will never truly be sustainable.

One of the participants explaining the steps to implementing a Children's CHE program.

Studying how Paul got to know the city of Athens.

Studying what observations Paul made about the social and spiritual life of Athens.
Training is finished! What a great group of people. They represent three organizations that already have wonderful children's ministries. They are now working on implementing the CHE strategies to make their work more holistic and sustainable.

Children's TOT (part a)

In February we were finally able to hold our Chidren's Training of Trainers (TOT) in Port-au-Prince! We'd planned to have it in December but several weeks of riots and unrest made that impossible.

Here the participants enact the story of a paralyzed man's four friends bringing him to Jesus. This story is really rich, not only for the beautiful demonstration of the wholeness of our being (physically and spiritually) but also for the life principles it demonstrates that are useful in development: persistence, love being our motivator, and the use of local materials. ;-)

This participant presents aspects of a children's program -- using games, stories, and drama to help with learning.


Morning small group Bible study.

After lunch most days the participants formed an impromptu worship band -- a nice break from lessons!

No electricity

No electricity today from early morning until just now (4 pm). That's rare for us -- it usually only goes out for a few minutes to an hour at a time. I was able to use our neighbor's wireless for awhile since he's got an inverter -- until the battery on my laptop was finished. So then what to do?

1. Organize my new desk! It's a thing of beauty to have my own desk. I have had piles and piles of papers I've been working with the past five months, and today I had the perfect excuse to make time to file some and make a nice to-do pile out of the rest
2. Pray with my colleague, Evelyne! We started out singing "Dieu tout puissant": Alors mon cœur redit, la nuit, le jour, 'Que Tu es bon, o Dieu d’amour!' -- a song I love in English and Spanish, too. We had a lot of things to pray about: Evelyne had to meet with her community yesterday to tell them that they had no funds to pay teachers. Our colleague Anias left today for a long journey by road to Port-au-Prince, where he'll work for two days and then go to the island of La Gonave with two other colleagues to the CHE programs just starting there. I need to get a vehicle, and need wisdom as to how to go about it.
3. Get stories from our colleagues to fill out one of our overdue quarterly reports (we can still blame the cholera epidemic for being behind on paperwork, I think). That was super-fun, as everyone shared great stories of changes they've seen or heard about in CHE communities.

So now I have a clean desk and an overflowing e-mail inbox! ;-) Glad to have the electricity back on!