GUINEA: A Country in Transformation

By Gypsy Meadows

Most of you know the story of Paul on the road to Damascus: a dramatic conversion followed by a life led for one thing only — to further the work of Christ in the world,no matter what the consequences. The story of Emmaus Christian School parallels Paul’s, and as you will see, is just as steadfast in the face of adversity.

Emmaus Christian School is in Conakry, the capital city of Guinea in West Africa. Despite a vast wealth of natural resources, Guinea is one of the poorest countries in the world. According to Operation World,it is also one of the least evangelized countries in Africa. Since the era of Soviet repression from 1960-1983, Guinea has been plagued by corruption in the government and deficient social services, especially in education. 75% of the population is illiterate, and a tiny fraction, less than 1%, complete secondary education.

The situation is made even more difficult for girls, as the majority of them will be petitioned for sexual favors from teachers before they are rewarded with a diploma. Girls make up less than 10% of those who graduate from secondary education in Guinea. Without an education girls often turn to prostitution, while young men become vulnerable to rebel gangs—which recruit and train boys to plunder throughout West Africa, targeting countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone. As the situation seems to worsen in Guinea, talented and informed
Guineans become discouraged and many immigrate to North America.

THE ROAD TO EMMAUS - It is into this situation of apparent hopelessness that Emmaus Christian School enters the scene. In 1997, a man named Samuel Kamano founded Emmaus inthe municipality of Matoto, in Conakry. Since its beginnings the school has grown tremendously, and all of it has taken place in a self-supporting waythrough the leadership and teamwork of Africans.

Emmaus offers the best education in Guinea, and the future political leadership of the country may come out of this school. “Emmaus has rapidly gained a reputation amongst government officials as a viable and exemplary educational institution,” writes Harold Kallemeyn, sponsorship coordinator for the school. “A number of high-ranking government officials have enrolled their own children in the Emmaus School, despite their Muslim background. The school is becoming known as a place where children learn to work hard, value honesty, and develop personal initiative and respect for each other.”

Some graduates of Emmaus will become Christians, while others will retain a respect for Christianity. “Emmaus is building a social consciousness in a culture focused on tribal leadership,” Harold explained. “Instead of blindly following leaders, the school encourages students to reflect for themselves – they stress interaction, questioning and discussion.”

A SOCIETY OF FEAR - With this attitude, Emmaus is going a long way to build democracy. “They are countercultural in a society of fear,” said Harold. “It’s important that this way of thinking is exported to other countries. Elections are a farce there—it’s a great tragedy in Africa.”

Along with helping students develop a social consciousness, the Emmaus team must also be innovative with curriculum development. Guinea is a former colony of France and they are dependent on French texts. Harold, a citizen of Paris, reported that these texts are somewhat anti-religious and elitist, with a focus on transmitting information rather than on classroom interaction.

Challenges abound at Emmaus. The school runs despite intense opposition from militant Muslims in their neighborhood, who do everything they can to persuade the local landlords to oust Emmaus from the facilities they must rent. “During the latter part of the summer, 2001,” reports Harold, “Muslim extremists approached two of the landlords who had been renting classroom facilities to Emmaus. They offered the landlords three to five times the current rent if they would evict Emmaus from their properties. This offer was accepted, and so the staff of Emmaus had to scramble to find alternative rental facilities.

EMMAUS CHRISTIAN SCHOOL AT A GLANCE - Current Location: rented facilities in the municipality of Matoto, city of Conakry in Guinea, West Africa.

• Primary Religion of Student Families: Islam Number of Students: 1,200 currently enrolled
• Offerings: a kindergarten, primary school, junior and senior high school. The junior high is one of two in the municipality of Matoto – a community of 100,000 people, 30,000 of whom do not attend school.
  

What sets Emmaus apart from the rest? For one, they include slower learners with quick learners in the classroom. This is so students can learn to help one another. Though they come from classrooms of mixed abilities, the percentage of passing students is very high. In Guinea elementary school children must pass a national exam before being admitted into junior high. On the national average, 65% pass and become eligible for secondary school. Since 1997, 95% of the children educated in the Emmaus elementary school have passed the exam. “What’s impressive is the upbeat nature of the team at Emmaus,” says Harold. “They instill pride in their school and in what they’re doing through team sports, specifically volleyball.”

God’s hand is obviously at work at Emmaus, but further growth and development can only happen through partnership with Worldwide Christian Schools and its donors. “The Emmaus School Board has arrived at a critical juncture in its development,” writes Harold. “The Emmaus Parents’ Association has raised the funds needed to purchase land for a building which will serve both the junior and senior high. However, building costs are above their means. The Emmaus board is seeking financial partners who will help make this building program possible.”

“The school has operated successfully largely because of good leadership, teamwork, and resources,” Harold reported. “However, tuition costs are presently fixed at $115 per student.” Some potential students cannot afford tuition, but sponsorship would enable them to attend classes.

When you consider Paul’s conversion on the road that fateful day, there is a comparison to be made: Guinea, a nation close to hopelessness, and Emmaus, a school that has become its flickering fire. This school has risen from the ashes and will transform its country.

Will you join the efforts of the dedicated Emmaus team on this project? It will make all the difference in the lives of the students, their parents, and their country. “...Many other children in our area are regularly coming here to read. There is no library in our area except our school’s. We have been blessed through you...”

PLEASE JOIN US! - To donate to this project, go to www.wwcs.org and click on The Calling. For more information contact Dale Dieleman: ddieleman@wwcs.org or (616) 531- 9102

The Price of One Latte!

By Gypsy Meadows

You don't have to give up a lot!

How much time do you have to change the world? How much time do you spend fighting against inequality, injustice, discrimination or poverty? Is it even possible to make a difference in these important issues?

I want to encourage you. As a North American, you have so many demands on your time and attention, and yet as a human being, I know you also care about those who don’t enjoy the same liberties you do. I know the millions of children orphaned by AIDS in Africa pull on your heart, but what can you do? I am certain the women and girls of the Middle East who are denied access to education and social services make you want to act, but where do you start?

It takes courage to see the world for what it really is, because as soon as we see, we feel a sense of responsibility. Many people with less courage just shut out the real world and live in a cocooned environment where the needy world is out there but one’s own needs and wants take first priority.

Because we live in North America, we know that certain values are the goal of our society even though we don’t live in a perfect world yet. But so many people throughout the world don’t have that hope. There are no social services to run to in crisis, no justice system founded on certain inalienable rights, no freedom to become who you are outside of strict societal definition. These are the people who need our help. With the freedom and security we enjoy, we can change the world for those who have no one to go to for help.

One tool that has been found effective in accomplishing this is Christian education. By teaching biblical values such as equality, fair treatment, equal opportunity and freedom of religion and expression to children in the darkest places of the world, not only is hope born at an immediate level, but a new way of looking at life is introduced to children who may have only been taught one way.

For example, our Christian mission schools throughout Bangladesh are not only providing the only source of education to thousands of village children, they are also challenging the boys to consider that women and girls have equal value in God’s eyes. This is contrary to what most of these boys learn in their society, and it offers an opportunity to change an entire nation within the next generation.

The projects presented in this publication give you an opportunity to change the world even as you go about building your own. Consider this: How much could you change the world for the price of a latte a day? Many of us spend three or four dollars every day on specialty coffee drinks. What could four dollars a day do to change the world?

Can you hear the very stones cry out?

He replied, "I tell you that if these keep silent, the very stones will cry out." Habukkuk 2:11 and Luke 19:40 Samson Makhado, director of Christian schools in South Africa, recently said, “I walked into a classroom and saw there were no pencils or pens. Instead, each child had a carefully guarded piece of lead with which to do assignments. I wanted to weep.” Cobus, a principal in one of those schools expressed his despair saying, “I look around at the teachers and students in my school and wonder who will still be with us a year from now. AIDS is killing our children and our teachers.” In UlaanBataar, Mongolia, the police tell us that from 500 to 1,000 children live in the sewers under the streets at any one time. Some are orphans, others are refugees from abusive and alcoholic parents, and some have been abandoned by their families because there is not enough food. During the day these children beg for money, steal food, and search garbage for bones they can use to boil into thin soup just to stay alive. At night they huddle underground close to the insulated pipes that carry hot water to apartment blocks. They do not attend school because they have no one to give them clothing or school supplies. That is especially sad because school would not only provide education but give them one meal a day. In Bangladesh, only 32% of the population over age 7 can read and write. Because their families live in poverty, children are needed to work in garment factories, as brick breakers, as rickshaw pullers or in other hazardous work. Schooling is the way out of this poverty, but if these children are to attend schools their families must have food. We are filled with delight when our own children and grandchildren happily tell us what they are learning in their Christian school about living for justice and caring for others. At the same time, children in many countries throughout the world live in poverty and degradation that is unimaginable to us, scarcely able to stay alive, much less attend school. If Christians do not step forward and help these children will the very stones cry out?

A Big Difference in a Little Can

by Emily Klooster

Children eating rice at New Life School in India

A Christian school in Holland, MI reached a new record for the WCS Lunch Money program by raising $2700 for students in India. Your school can start a Lunch Money coin drive too, and help provide what is often a child's only daily meal.

“I liked it that we can make a big difference with a little canister.”

- Meka Tubergen, a fifth-grader at Rose Park Christian School in Holland, MI

Lunch Money is a program of Worldwide Christian Schools that enables North American students to partner with Christian schools in India. WCS provides coin canisters for students to take home, and kids return their full cans to the classroom. From there, WCS staff picks them up and delivers the coins to the bank. The change is counted and sent to four different WCS partner schools in India. 90% of the funds raised is used to buy food for school lunch programs, while 10% goes toward increasing the impact of the Lunch Money program.

Often, a school lunch is the only meal an Indian student will receive each day. Many families in India live in poverty, but just like in the United States, parents want the best for their children. Sending them to a quality Christian school where they will receive a consistent meal gives parents relief from the constant worry that their children will go hungry.

Rose Park Christian School in Holland, Michigan recently made a big impact for the Lunch Money program. This past November, students and teachers raised $2700 for Indian students, a record for the program which launched last spring.

“I was excited that our school could look beyond our own walls to help in a nation on the other side of the earth,” said fifth-grade teacher Jim Geertsma. “Fifth graders learn the locations of all of the world's countries, so they knew where India was, but none of my students could say that they have experienced real hunger. The fact that this lunch money would provide the only daily meal for some children was hard for us to imagine.”

In India, as little as 20 cents will buy a lunch, so Rose Park’s coins will be a big help to the Indian schools. In turn, the Lunch Money program has had its influence at Rose Park. “I finally had a good way to put my change to good use,” said fifth-grader Austin Gehreke. Fellow Rose Park student Jacob Faber said, “I felt that I had accomplished something, and I felt proud that I could help these people.” Macy Bakker was straightforward with her feelings toward the program. "I really liked dumping all my money in the can," she confided.

Although raising funds for Lunch Money was an effort made by the entire school, the fifth grade class at Rose Park has plans to “pen pal” with a classroom in India as a result of the program. Through writing and receiving letters, the students will learn that helping each other goes both ways. Their coins provide meals for Indian children, and in return they receive an opportunity to learn about the rich culture, family backgrounds and daily routines of students in India.

“I would love to have a pen pal,” said fifth-grader Carly Palmatier. “I think I could learn to say my name in Indian.” Caleb Bol told us, “I would like to have a pen pal in India because they would teach me how to work harder. I think they have to work harder over there.”

Mr. Geertsma is proud of the effort made by Rose Park students. “In our class it was fun to see a large jar fill up with money,” he said. “Students brought in full canisters before the due date, and then brought the canister home again to refill it!”

Rose Park fifth-graders hold up their Lunch Money cans

For more information on the Lunch Money program, contact gmeadows@wcs-us.org or (800) 886-9000, or donate now.

This I Believe

Jesus took the command to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and pushed the definition of who is our neighbor, out, out, and still further out, until it reached to the ends of the earth and included all of humanity - all of God’s children.

- Alvin Alexi Currier (quotation found in Sojourners)

The mattresses have arrived!

Our friends Siani and Suphala write from Orissa, India, that the mattresses for the children have arrived! This is such exciting news. Worldwide Christian Schools learned that the 50 children living in their orphanage were sleeping on on the hardwood floor. And so WCS came up with the money needed for mattresses for the children.

Siani and Suphala are a very young married couple who have given their lives to providing for children who are orphans. They not only provide a home and food but also Christian schooling. What a blessing they are to those children.

They are going to send photographs soon.

Winter in Spokane

I haven't written since January 3. That is much too long a time. It is very cold here in Spokane and we have a few inches of snow. Because we seldom have wind the snow remains on the branches of the fir trees all around us and it really is beautiful.

Spokane has a lot of homeless people and this time of year is particularly difficult for them. There are enough beds in the shelters around the city but some of the homeless people simply cannot allow themselves to be housed in a place that has rules.

I went to visit the Urban Gospel Mission, a shelter for men. The shelter is really run well and men who are able and willing to follow a planned program can learn skills such as those needed by auto mechanics and many other trades. A new shelter for homeless women and children is opening soon to provide places for those who cannot find room in the shelters that are available for them. A survey last July showed that there were 730 homeless women here at that time.

It is interesting to hear all of the things that can go wrong in a person's life, leading up to being homeless. Much of it is because of drugs and alcohol, of course, but for others it is a matter of many things going wrong at once. For example we meet people who lost their jobs because of ill health. They had no health insurance and so the hospital bills were extremely high. In trying to pay those debts, they neglected to pay their apartment rent. And so they are on the street. Often these are matters for which they could receive help. But if one doesn't know where to turn for help, it doesn't matter that help is available.

That is enough sadness for today. Spokane remains beautiful.

Education and Longevity

From the New York Times, By GINA KOLATA

Published: January 3, 2007

James Smith, a health economist at the RAND Corporation, has heard a variety of hypotheses about what it takes to live a long life — money, lack of stress, a loving family, lots of friends. But he has been a skeptic.

Data on Hispanic Immigrants Presents Puzzle on Aging (January 3, 2007)

Yes, he says, it is clear that on average some groups in every society live longer than others. The rich live longer than the poor, whites live longer than blacks in the United States. Longevity, in general, is not evenly distributed in the population. But what, he asks, is cause and what is effect? And how can they be disentangled?

He is venturing, of course, into one of the prevailing mysteries of aging, the persistent differences seen in the life spans of large groups. In every country, there is an average life span for the nation as a whole and there are average life spans for different subsets, based on race, geography, education and even churchgoing.

But the questions for researchers like Dr. Smith are why? And what really matters?

The answers, he and others say, have been a surprise. The one social factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in every country where it has been studied is education. It is more important than race; it obliterates any effects of income.

Year after year, in study after study, says Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, education “keeps coming up.”

And, health economists say, those factors that are popularly believed to be crucial — money and health insurance, for example, pale in comparison.

Dr. Smith explains: “Giving people more Social Security income, or less for that matter, will not really affect people’s health. It is a good thing to do for other reasons but not for health.”

Health insurance, too, he says, “is vastly overrated in the policy debate.”

Instead, Dr. Smith and others say, what may make the biggest difference is keeping young people in school. A few extra years of school is associated with extra years of life and vastly improved health decades later, in old age.

It is not the only factor, of course.

There is smoking, which sharply curtails life span. There is a connection between having a network of friends and family and living a long and healthy life. And there is evidence that people with more powerful jobs and, presumably, with more control over their work lives, are healthier and longer lived.

But there is little dispute about the primacy of education.

“If you were to ask me what affects health and longevity,” says Michael Grossman, a health economist at the City University of New York, “I would put education at the top of my list.”

Living in the Fabric of Faithfulness

The following is an excerpt from our forthcoming book, Living in the Fabric of Faithfulness (Julia Stronks and Gloria Stronks).

I was in Amsterdam visiting an elementary school that had many children of color whose parents or grandparents had come to the Netherlands from Surinam, Morocco, or Turkey. The principal took me around first of all to the pre-school class and then on to every other classroom. In each classroom the children asked me how old I was. My response was always the same. “In my country it is not considered good manners to ask adults how old they are but I will tell you my age.”

In the sixth grade class, after my standard answer, I asked, “Why do children in this school keep asking how old I am?” There was a great deal of whispering and then a girl said, “You see, Miss, we can tell how old our parents’ friends are. But your skin is a different color and we haven’t learned how to tell how old white people are.” I motioned that they should gather around me, took off my glasses, and showed them that when Caucasian people age they have lines by their eyes, deep smile lines, and sometimes wrinkles between their eyes and on their necks. I wasn’t particularly pleased to hear their enthusiastic, “Oh, yes! Look! We can see that.”

Return to Soweto

By Emily Klooster Click here to view a photo album of Africa Outreach Christian School in Soweto. Soweto, South Africa is a place synonymous with freedom and hope. Rising out of a troubled past, the road to justice and equality has been long and difficult for Soweto, but a Christian school in one of the poorest areas of the city is partnering with Worldwide Christian Schools to achieve healing for the past, and hope for the future. Field partners Pastor Johnson Mncube and his wife Nomsa run a small Christian school called Africa Outreach in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Soweto. The school began in 1993 with ten children from church-going families in the neighborhood. It has now grown to accommodate more than 70 students from the greater community. The Africa Outreach School started out in the Mncubes home, and currently holds classes in temporary structures on the church grounds. The school is struggling to accommodate further growth without the proper space, so the Mncubes are seeking funds to build an addition that will house classrooms for more students. The total cost of the project Johnson envisions is $216,600. WCS field director Dale Dieleman vouches strongly for the school and the dedication of the Mncubes. “By the commitment of Pastor Johnson to the spiritual, physical, and educational well-being of this community, we see a theme of an Africa for and by Africans being modeled here,” Dieleman said. “Hearing Pastor Johnson’s vision for this school and seeing how it is appreciated makes it evident that his commitment to the community is strong. WCS wants to be as supportive as possible in helping Pastor Johnson realize his dream of providing the first Christian primary school in this neighborhood.” Click here to learn about a CD of African songs benefitting Africa Outreach Christian School in Soweto.

Project Progress Goal: $216,600.00 Achieved: $2,145.00 Make a gift!

Greetings!

I love getting your emails! Some of you have asked about my family and so I am sending a picture of us at Christmas time. This is one of those "set the camera and then run and get into the picture" deals. (Just click on the picture for a closer view.)

On the left, sitting on the arm of the couch is our grandson, Matt, sixteen years old. Next to him is his mother, our daughter Julia. In front of them is her husband, Charles.

Next to Julia is my husband Bill and then me. To the right of me is our son Bill and in front of Bill is his wife, Amy.

We had a wonderful time together.

We hope that all of you will have a wonderful new year.