Teacher Conference

By Katie

Right after we got back to Honduras from our trip to the States, I got to go to a teachers' conference with other teachers from my school. The conference was for the five schools in Honduras whom Worldwide Christian Schools supports financially. Teachers from these five schools all over Honduras met at a conference grounds outside of Tegucigalpa. The purpose was to both hold teacher trainings and to have a spiritual retreat.

Here's the teachers who came from Luz y Verdad working together to name our strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities as a school. It was a great opportunity to talk and reflect on our school.

One afternoon we got to take a little get-away trip to a near-by town that sells artisan goods. I appreciated all the time we got to get to know other teachers and share in motivating one another in the work we all do. In the photo below, you can see our two conference coordinators on the left; Gloria (who also works with us at Diaconia Nacional) and Heidi (who came from Canada to help with the conference).

I went to the conference a little defeated because only half of our staff chose to go and the group attitude has been a little low. But the time we had with other teachers and getting to know my own coworkers even better, on top of lots of time spent on spiritual encouragement, was good for me and those of us who went. The positive change has rubbed off at school a little too. Pray with me that God uses what we took away from that conference to strengthen the school even more.

Another positive thing to look forward to is this Friday two teachers from every school are going to meet in Tegucigalpa to make preparations for a possible event like this next year. In the past Canadian teachers have planned this conference and Worldwide has funded it. Those opportunities are unlikely for the future due to budget cuts, so a group is forming to see if they can solicit funds and elbow grease to make the conference happen despite those challenges. I see this as a perfect opportunity for strengthening the unity and collaboration between the schools.

Back at it

By Katie

We made it back from our trip to the States about a week and a half ago now. It was great to see many of you, although we felt the pressure of having only a short time to see you and didn't hardly get to see as many people as we had hoped. Regardless, it was good to take a little time to give a couple of presentations and reflect on our work and life here and to get some time being plain old Americans in our own country. The greeting cards and coffee all got sold, so thanks to the many of you who rushed to buy them!

Sometimes it's good to leave things here in Honduras for a while to be able to come back and see how well things went. There were a few successes to share. The youth board planned a retreat to a mountain-side cabin with a variety of area churches. Kids from our church got themselves there, and the success of that is that we didn't drive them! It shows that they had the initiative to do what wasn't easy to get themselves to the event. Also there was a substitute Sunday school teacher who did a great job, and could maybe take over for us when we're done. Also, in our presentations to the churches I talked about giving the front porch kids a bunch of homework to see if they could find others to help them do it. Some, but not all, of them did with reasonalbe success, so that was good to see too. The last thing that we want is to leave Honduras in December with gaping holes in leadership. The two-week test while we were in the States gave us a good indication of how we all are doing on that.