The Family Unit
A full week of intentional focus on marriage and the family just ended. This was a capstone class that will prayerfully help these 7 families to submit to one another through obedience and love.
Topics covered included but were not limited to biblical marriage, definitions of love, establishing healthy boundaries and fences in relationships, communication, conflict resolution, parenting, budgeting, differences in sets of needs, intimacy, anger management, and lust.
There were cultural difficulties in teaching the class even for a long-term missionary. Things like clearly defined roles in the local culture made it challenging to teach things like showing love through acts of service. When cultural discrepancies presented themselves, the biblical principle was restated, and the students were encouraged to find their own application to that principle.
Each day was balanced with godly principles and fun to remind the students of the joy in marriage. By the end of the week, the husbands and wives seemed more relaxed around each other.
It is our desire for the students to continue working on their own marriages as well as to begin sharing this information with others once they return to their villages.
What about the children?
Great question! If both parents are in class for 30 hours (spanning over the course of four full days and a partial day on Friday), where are the children, and what are they doing?
From 7:45 until noon, Leann and Alyssa cared for the children who were not yet old enough to attend primary school. There were officially 7 of them, but one school employee’s child who lives on campus also tagged along several days. At the beginning of each hour, we had an activity ready. We went from building houses and cars with blocks to picture cards, snacks, and then a game. At that point, the little ones were fading fast and rest time often took us close to noon (especially for those who were slow to wake up). We did our best to keep everyone with us, but one or two were not quite old enough to be away from mom for long.
Throughout the afternoon (1:30-4:30) the older kids trickled in from school, ate lunch in their homes, and then joined us. We brought out Bible coloring pages, games, and ended with picking up trash in exchange for a sucker. Homemade games (even meaning hand-sewn by Alyssa in some cases like bean bags) included giant tic-tac-toe, bean bag toss, and bowling.
As we are six to eight weeks away from rainy season, keeping the kids hydrated was important. We served rehydration drinks daily.
Meet Your New Sister
Although the waters are receding significantly as we near the end of dry season, there was enough in the creek to immerse Labeka on October 1st. She was buried in the water and came out a new creature (Romans 6:4, II Corinthians 5:17). Labeka attended class without fail as Dale took the congregation through an 8-week study of Bible basics including God’s plan of redemption and salvation. She also fully understood that changes would be needed to comply with Biblical teachings on an on-going basis.