Thursday 21 June 2012

God at work in the Schools

Moni, Muli Bwanji?
Hello, How are you?

This is a beautiful country where everyone is so willing to greet you and help you out. At present, Kylie and I have been going to two schools a day, joining in with the Student Organisation (CCAPSO) which runs worship services in school lunch breaks and after-school classes. We have been so impressed with how open these student are about their faith, and how joyful they are in the Lord. We've been instructed to go and teach the students, but everyday we find that they are teaching us more and more.

Amy teaching from Lamentations
I want to try and share with you our experience at the last school we went to on Wednesday afternoon, Blantyre Secondary School. Our daily ritual has been to arrive at the school when Joy, the CCAPSO organiser, finds the deputy principal to tell him that we have arrived. Then it's only around 30 minutes of waiting while they inform and gather the students so we can start. Even though there are these waiting times, we are enjoying this time, it's where we can get to know a little more about Joy, his wife and family, and general day to day life for people here in Malawi. We are encouraged with his vision and passion with the youth here in Blantyre, for his desire for them to have a personal relationship with God and have firm biblical grounding.


Once the students are all organised the Patron takes us to the room, where the students have gathered. Kylie and I have learnt not to have preconceived ideas on how the lessons should be run, for every school is different, and we need to go about approaching each one in different ways. For example Monday afternoon, we walked into a room of 50-70 girls singing songs at the top of their lungs. Tuesday morning we walked into a room of 5 students who were very shy and reserved students who didn't want to sing much at all, but the number grew to around 15 during the lesson. Wednesday afternoon we were led to an empty geography class. So for the first time we were able to set up the room in preparation for the students arrival. As the students arrived they greeted us with hand shakes and hellos, this is sometimes quite cute because whenever we say "hello", they ALWAYS assume that we ask them how they are, so normally the conversation goes, “Hello" ... "I am fine thank-you and how are you?” We don't even need to ask the question, to find out that they are all fine. After the tiny room was packed with around forty students, a gorgeous young girl came up the front to lead the worship time.

Teaching the students an Aussie song
The young student leaders are always fulled with passion and zeal, she started with calling the students to have joy in their lives by following Jesus. They always seem to have a little saying where everyone joins in. When the speaker says Hallelujah, everyone else says amen. This young lady started by asking us to give her a J, “J” give her and O, “O”, give her a Y, “Y” and what do we have? “JOY”. She did the same with Jesus. Then she finished by saying “up up Jesus” and everyone responding “down down satan”. Then we entered the time of worship songs. It's so amazing to join in with their worship time. They have no instruments, just their incredible voices and harmonies. Everyone dances and sways in time and claps to the beat. How it works is that one person sings a line, then everyone joins in, they sing beautifully, and go from song to song interchangeably. Some time it's in Chichewa, but thankfully at Blantyre Secondary they all sung in English and there were songs that we had learnt from our past lessons at other schools.

Once worship songs were finished, the lesson was passed over to Kylie and me to lead. We always start, explaining that we have come from Melbourne, Australia, then go into what we do in Australia and then we show them how far we travelled to get to Malawi on a world map.


After introductions are done, we say that we want to get to know the students better, so we have a short get-to-know-you game, so that we can interact with the students more. Generally, we just try and learn/hear their names and what they enjoy doing. Mainly they enjoy watching soccer, playing soccer, singing, listening to music, and dancing. On this particular occasion we got some interests that we hadn't heard before, like some enjoyed watching cartoons and films, watching basketball. We know that lots of houses don't have electricity and most the people in Malawi can barely afford anything more than their daily needs.

Kylie teaching on how Jesus calms the storm
We have had the opportunity to share with the students our personal testimonies, and passages of scripture to encourage and build up their faith. We have been finding it very uplifting, watching how God is using what we have prepared, and blessing not only us but the students as well. Some of the topics we have covered have been: living out your faith with confidence, God's big love for you, then working though passages using the SOAP method - Scripture, Observation, Application and Prayer.

We've found our time in the schools a very moving and humbling experience, and it's been an honour to serve God through this ministry.
Continued prayer is appreciated as we continue to build on the relationships with the school and the students. Pray that God would continue to give us the words to speak and wisdom to know what areas to address and teach. Pray for each of the Form 4s (last year of high school) who are preparing to sit exams in the coming weeks.
Blessings Amy and Kylie

1 comment:

  1. Ian and Sheila on way to Rochester to take service. Not easy to see with sun in my eyes. But taking opportunity o catch with what you are all doing. Love to you all, keep up the good work. Finally a few trees to block out the sun, but they won,t last long. Hope your long services go well.

    ReplyDelete

If you would like to leave the team a comment, please do so here. You will need to select a profile. If you don't have a Google account (blogger) use the Anonymous option. Thanks!