Katatura literally means “the place we do not want to live.” It is the place where Community Hope School is located, and it is the place where we are doing most of our work. This is the week when we can finally start the schedule and ministry that we have signed up for. In the last few weeks we have been moving into our home and getting settled, we spent about ten days helping with a short term team that was visiting, and we have been working on some administrative things for the school. But this week we will finally begin our community survey. The first part of our survey is going to be a general information gathering for the school. We will be attempting to visit all the homes of children in the school. This way we will update the school’s records and the community will get to know our faces. Then in a month or so we will begin with a survey based on the book Agents of Transformation, this survey involves asking specific questions of the community in order to get a picture of what the community believes. We believe that in order to have a successful new church plant we have to first get to know the community and find people within the community who can be the driving force, or champions of the new church. This survey will take several months. Please keep us in your prayers, and be asking God for divine appointments with the people in the community that we will be meeting. It truly is an exciting day.

We also teach three classes in school. I teach a health class (based on some CHE materials and principles), David teaches a discipleship class (we will on occasion be splitting the class between boys and girls to talk about certain topics in discipleship), and we both teach two PE classes. We are using all these classes to teach the kids spiritual principles. I also am very excited about a dance class that I will be teaching soon.
In the future we hope to have night classes for some of the parents/guardians of the students, so that we can increase the impact that the school is having in the community.

The school itself is a place of light in the community of Katatura. The kids love the school, and the teachers and other staff really pour their hearts into the children.
Please keep us in your prayers!