Highs and Lows

26/06/2012

The team were awoken this morning quite early due to very heavy rain beating down upon the roof and there may have been a potential tiny earthquake, but this is not definite. Today was similar to yesterday in some ways as the DT team were teaching all day again, however the teaching was instead aimed at approximately 40 pastors rather than just bible college students (however the students did also attend). The pastors were from the Diocese of Shyogwe and ranged in age and experience. Some of the pastors walked for up to 2 hours in the bad weather to be at the seminar and Andy raised a good point concerning the pastor’s toil, questioning whether people in England would even drive for this amount of time in hard rain, never mind walk!

Stephanie was first up to teach at the seminar and spoke about different ways that we can study the bible and there were a few surprises when discussing the differences in techniques of learning the scriptures. Pete Nadin and Lucy were up next and spoke about working with young people, and many interesting conversations grew from this seminar resulting in some of the pastors thinking about appointing youth workers within their congregations! At the same time Pete Ellis and Heather were also teaching about setting an example for people to follow, and reflected upon the examples of Jesus and Paul.

After dinner it was time for Hazel to speak about what she had prepared on how to be encouraging, which was most definitely encouraging in itself for not only the pastors but also the members of the DT team that listened in. Andy then finished the seminar day with an encouraging word that ended up turning into a passionate sermon presented by the double act of Emmanuel and Andy. The pastors were clearly encouraged by the thought provoking teaching throughout the day, and requested for our team to come back and do a 2-3 day seminar next time rather than just the one day! God obviously wanted to do a lot of encouraging today!

For a short time during the day Stephanie revisited the clinic, and while sitting with the nurse seeing one patient the door opened and two men burst in carrying a seemingly unconscious woman. The woman was 42 and had a 4 month old baby, her husband said she had been manic and for the last few days had not been speaking, eating or drinking. The nurse surmised that this was because of the traumas of the genocide which she had been reminded of during the annual 100 day remembrance time. The woman’s eyes were wide open and they were full of horror; Stephanie and the nurse prayed for her before she was transferred to the hospital by ambulance. This experience has brought to reality that the trauma from such a devastating event still continues.

The team spent the evening reflecting upon the issues of the day whilst the mothers union came round to the guest house in order for us to take a look at some of their handiwork.