Day Four and Five - Guinea pigs

Well day four and five were all about being guinea pigs! We, this team from Brighton Naz, are the first team from the US to ever come and teach here at Africa Nazarene University. And while there were many bumps in the road the first couple of days, the rewards have been great!!

Almost all of the students that our team is teaching are teachers here in Kenya. Most are from small villages that are required to take a course once a year and ANU is one of only three universities that offer those courses for teachers. The cool thing is that ANU has tried VERY hard to make it possible for as many teachers as possible to come. First by creating these two week intensive courses that go for 4 hours everyday, this allows the teachers, most of which are mothers and fathers who need to keep working during this time to only be gone from their families for a short time. Secondly, they have made it as affordable as possible, most of these teachers come from very small villages and don't earn much to start with.

The coolest part for all of us has been to see the commitment of these teachers to get here. Three of Dianes students have to ride 4 hours EACH WAY, EVERY DAY for her 4 hour class. And one of Ken's students is a pastor but wants to learn more so that he can further the kingdom so he has left his family for the next month. The most touching story came from Cliff's computer class...a teacher, who has probably taught for almost 10 years has never used a computer, never had the opportunity to even be near one. And she came to take the course and the second day he had the class type out a very simple letter to learn word processing and at the bottom, she added: "Thank God for Africa Nazarene University for giving me the opportunity to learn a computer". She will now be able, after these two weeks to go back to her school and be able to use the computer not only as a tool for her, but as a tool for her students to be educated more effectively.

We have been blessed to see how the little time we are putting in here on campus is helping to send these teachers back, all across Kenya, better educated to bring up the next generation and more than that we are praying with them and doing daily devotions with them and they are feeling the presence of God through us. I'm so excited to see all that God will do in these next two weeks!