This week the Literacy classes continued: the 3rd week since we started a new course in another area.
The teacher-in-training, Abar is doing a good job and the students are progressing in learning to read and write their mother tongue so that they can read the Scriptures.
Despite being still very young (hardly out of his teens), Abar is a believer who’s life and testimony is evident. The class he is teaching has many challenges, but he handles it with a maturity well beyond his years and a kindness that can only come from Christ in him. He has a gift in teaching and we praise God for his volunteering to teach the Literacy classes!
One of the students (not a believer) always comes to class under the influence. This is unusual in this culture, since more than 90% of the Mwinika follow a strong Middle Eastern religion in which drinking is taboo. He is not outright drunk and even manages to learn, but he is difficult with a strong personality.
What is even more disconcerting is that it seems that he is “sharing” his drink with some of the believers in that area who are still not strong in their identity in Christ…but free from the rules of their Eastern religion. This is dangerous ground for them!
Please pray for this guy (let’s call him Shaba – left in front on the photo wearing the “USA” T-shirt). Pray for Abar who must handle this on top of just now learning how to teach the classes, and especially for all the believers in that area. Pray that they will learn what it means to give Christ lordship over our lives and that they would be able to resist the many temptations around them.