10/14/10

My schooling begins…

Schooling for what? Well last spring, through a series of events, I got connected with a group called Community Health Evangelism. I should have told you more details about this earlier because it explains why I am traveling from Togo, to Ghana, to Liberia, to Ghana, to Togo, etc. This group, CHE, is in many countries around the world but in particular West Africa. As you know I wasn’t suppose to be in Togo initially in but God knew what he was doing. Last week while I was in Togo I connected with Daniel, who is one of the CHE facilitators and was able to go through the training for teacher part one well except it was all in French… eekk. But sometimes I had someone who could translate for me even if it was just for a bit. Now at the end of October I will go through the training in English over in Liberia. Hoorayy!

I won’t go into ALL the details but I will tell you some of the main points that I picked up, so you guys have an idea of what I am doing. So what CHE does is basically looks at the person or community in a wholistic way, physical and spiritual together. So instead of going into a village and just bringing medicine or going into a village and just praying for them, it pulls both of these together. Genius right? Well guess who thought this amazing idea up? Jesus. Yep, that’s right. It is all throughout the Bible. He didn’t just walk around praying and preaching or just handing out food and clothes. He did these things together. So cool!

SO basically what CHE does, right from the beginning, it goes into a village and gives locals the control and power. Once in a village, the people decide what they think needs to be done and then formulate a plan. This process takes a lot longer than the usual relief work that I am use to but this is also more sustainable and leads to independency and empowerment for the village.

2 Timothy 2:2~ And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.
One Saturday while in Togo I was able to go out with Daniel and his team to visit three villages that he helped start. All three of the villages were doing extremely well with the programs/projects that had been started. In addition, all of these groups had branched out even more and had thought up and initiated new projects on their own. So cool!
Anyway during this training I was able to get a good idea of what CHE does and how the whole program works. I will continue partnering learning more about CHE over these next 4 months and hopefully but able to put these ideas into practice.

Be praying for me that I will have a soft heart and mind to learn whatever God wants to teach me but also that I would be a constant learner in whatever situation God places me in.

1 comment:

Melissa Davey said...

I think you are amazingly flexable with all this traveling around West Africa for training. Your an amazing woman and I know you will come out of this training with gems of knowledge for us all. Keep up the good work. I can't wait to see you in Sierra Leone!