Shine School and Shine Course

Hello again. It is time to let you know what has been going on in my life. I have been in a very strange place here. As many of you know we took the Shine School Program into a rural area and began to the pilot run of the English Follow-up Program.

As the previous blog post will tell you, things went okay. It wasn't a failure but there were several situations that concerned the team.  The school we visited was a school we had been to previously. The administration's blatant disregard for the stipulations of the program along with the way the team was treated moved the larger team to spend a good amount of time re-evaluating the program and discussing different options.

This was a very frustrating and initially painful experience.  It also took a lot of time.  We finally had a time of resolution on November 18th.  Our first decision was to drop all pretense of English. Since every time we have been to this particular school we have been pressured to teach English, we had thought that giving them some English lessons in conjunction with our Shine value lessons would satisfy both our needs and theirs. However, we found that adding the English aspect to our curriculum actually made our situation more difficult.

We agreed that as a team we needed to sit down with the government official who has rubber stamped this project and re-enforce our intentions and the need for the help of the administrations we will work with. We want to ask him if he has other contacts who will perhaps understand our purpose better than the current administration does.  We desire to meet with him as a whole team, before proceeding.

However, meeting with our government contact has been difficult. So at this time the School Program is at a slight stand still. We are looking forward to pressing onward in the new year.

In-spite of this stand still for the School Project, we just finished a four day intensive of a Full Shine Course. This was very exciting and stressful. We taught all 8 sessions in four days and three of the women who attended we trained so that they could facilitate Shine in the future.  This was the first time I had been involved in training trainers.

I obviously love to teach Shine, but this time was a very special course for me because of some of the great behind the scenes things. The four of us who had gone to Vietnam to be trained (XC, myself, K, and R) all worked together on this course plus we had another woman who has been trained by R. The team work and cooperation really encouraged me and made working and teaching so enjoyable.  The group of women who I meet with on a weekly basis to study Father's Word also helped out by coming to my Christmas cookie making party-where we made cookies for one day of the Shine Course.

 I think this one was especially touching to me because it was a mix of women who were reasonably well adjusted and women who have lived part of their lives as victims. Seeing Father work through the course material as well as through each women was just very beautiful. One women really sought out the others who were vulnerable to pour into during each session.

Another women who was training to be a facilitator is the wife of a man who is laboring to bring in a great harvest and to be able to give her tools in order to open doors for his work was really lovely.  Each woman began to see that she was valued by Father.  

We also had some ladies who were really broken. It was really amazing to see their countenance change from day one to day four. At the beginning some would barely meet your eyes and by the end were seeking you out for hugs and holding each others' hands.  Father is so good. That the truth of His Word changes lives!!!

Session One: You are Valuable. Your Value doesn't change from the day you are born to the day you die. No one can make your value less by the way they treat you. Nothing you do adds to your value. These are truths that these young women have never heard.  Thank you for your part in helping these women have more of life!!