After a good (though short) night of sleep, we hit the road running —well, more like climbing…slowly. The altitude (over 7,000 ft.) did not hit us too hard until we encountered the stairs — and we had a lot of them on our first day here. It was day that brought clarity as to our schedule (it’s packed), as well as great encouragement from seeing a desire to fight for the next generation from church leaders in a country that prohibits any mention of God in any school, including Christian schools.
Early afternoon we met with three MINTS Seminary leaders. It took only a few minutes for us to become great friends, and from there the conversation flew in many different directions for several hours. We learned about some of the problems in Ethiopia and the need for quality, God-centered training for teachers. We shared our vision for PS78Teachers and it was well received. Finally, we worked to figure out a way for our lesson format to fit their typical schedule. Not an easy task, and one we will be continuing to work on while leading an orientation class for all ten of the seminary’s instructors tomorrow and Saturday. (Forgot to take a picture). Oh, and we drank the BEST coffee! And I don’t even like coffee! They all joined in to give us a history lesson on Ethiopia’s role as THE originator of coffee! Yes, I am bringing some back — come on over and try it!
The picture is of our wonderful MINTS’ Seminary host Solomon (middle) with an Ethiopian family (Yonatan and Hareg) who have helped organize and equip Christian school owners and teachers to integrate their faith within the tight restrictions here. And not just a few schools — Yonatan works with hundreds of school leaders. We met to discuss how our program (with MINTS Ethiopia) can be used to equip teachers to be faithful amidst these challenges while working for change.
