After 70 days, the Orphanage Responds Positively

The sign at the public school a few blocks from the orphanage.

Great news. On Friday, exactly 10 weeks from the day that our curriculum was denied, we received our first response from the orphange. They gave us a green light on beginning a much smaller pilot program with just English and Reading. 

 

Truth be told, on Thursday, after a discussion with Mark Roth, we decided to push the orphanage for a response. My sabbatical ends in a few weeks. My wife and son leave for the USA in a month. I am doing my best to be flexible and stay a bit longer but that is hard to do when we are being stonewalled.

 

In the letter to the orphange I shared what we had been doing over the past 70 days:

Deanne and I have been teaching the exact curriculum we proposed to Aldeas in several public schools. Students begin by watching a video and then writing down "Promises of the Bible" before going into the silent way and total physical response methods. We taught all the English lessons at the public school in Duruy first. Then we taught them in Bocuare. Now we are teaching at the biggest elementary school in Limon. Everyday that we teach, we see some of the orphans there. We just finished teaching lesson number three (from our original proposal) to the 6th graders.At the end of one of the classes, the 6th grade students begged us to stay and teach longer. I’ve taught every grade level, but for sixth graders to say this brought great joy to my heart. This curriculum is better than I thought. 

Some here were surprised that the biggest public school here in Limon would allow us to use "Promises of the Bible" in our journalling segment of our curriculum. In fact, that could have been one of the reason the orphanage was denying us access. However, the front of the school has a painted picture of Jesus Christ under the name of the school. Also, in the teacher's lunch room, one wall is painted with a picture of the Jesus Christ and the 12 Apostles at the Last Supper. So this part of our curriculum is encouraged here.

In our letter, I also shared how incredibly surprised I was at the English levels of the kids in the public schools. 

Also, my wife and I were incredibly surprised to see how good the English levels were at the local public school. Most of the kids in these schools are fairly good at English. When we tested ALL of the orphans, this was not the case. Now that we’ve taught at several schools, we can see that the orphans, for the most part, are farther behind than we ever imagined.

This is scary. I shouldn’t be that surprised, but I am. The orphans need our help much more than the local public school kids. So on Thursday, we are going to begin working with the local orphanage team on the best way to roll out our pilot plan. We pray that this meeting is productive and our short time left down here is blessed by God and bears fruit.