Update!

Right now many of the students in Rwanda are either finishing or have just recently finished taking their national exams.  The public Rwandan schools follow the calendar year: begin in January and end in October or November.  At certain grades all children are required to take a national exam: the end of 6th grade, 9th grade, and 12th grade.  The results of these exams determine if they will continue their schooling and how they score also determines where they will continue their schooling (better scores get to attend better schools).  As we remember to keep these students in our prayers for success on their exams, this would be a good time to share with you about a recent project.

The team that was in Rwanda in August accomplished several things.  One of the main projects for TTI was outfitting and establishing a tutoring center for the children in our program.  The office building that we moved into this year had an extra room attached to it.  Mike’s idea was to turn this room into a place where the children could come to get help on their studies.

In Rwanda it is required that lessons be taught in English.  As you can probably guess, English is not the first language of Rwandans.  This can make lessons difficult.  Besides the natural variety of levels in the children’s skills in a particular subject, there is also the varying levels of English skills.  This can add a second layer of possible difficulties to their studies.  Affluent families will hire private tutors for their children.  Families who have a little extra money will pay for “coaching” (group tutoring) on the weekends.  We wanted to provide a place where the children in our program can come and get help without having to worry about the cost.

The team did a fabulous job of getting this tutoring center all set up and established with many items useful for helping the children in math, English, reading, writing, and so on.  I would like to share a few of the images from this trip with you.

I love this last picture for several reasons.  One being you see the resident artist from the Home of Innocence, Benjamin, bent over the table working on labels for our new room (you can read some of Benjamin’s miracle story in our blog here).  The other is you see “Coach” one of our adult volunteers, loving on a child, and the third reason is if you look at the DVD playing right at the moment this picture was taken you will see it is a worship video.  (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)  It is Don Moen (remember him?) singing the song, “God will make a way” (where there seems to be no way), and the lyric “He will make a way” is captured on screen right at the moment this picture was taken- love it!

We thank God for making this tutoring center possible and we thank our August team for being the hands and feet to make it happen.  Mike will be leading another team in Rwanda the day after Christmas.  This team will be hosting several Christmas parties during their time in Rwanda and I look forward to sharing with you the great times they will be having loving on children in various orphanages.

If you are interested in visiting Rwanda we would love to have you come along.  We partner with AGCI (All God’s Children International) and you can find out more about the upcoming trips to Rwanda by visiting their website click here.  (The next Rwanda trip after the December one will be the summer of 2013.)

Thank you for keeping the children in your prayers and Ten Talents International as well.

God Bless You!

Lisa