Last week I got to travel to Kigali to spend the week teaching in the Discipleship Training School.  The topic for the week was Outreach Prep.  The week includes around 15 hours of teaching.  It is centred around doing various teambuilding activities, and discussion or teaching that arises out of that.  (For example, looking at how our actions affect other people: In most of the activities, if one person makes a mistake, the entire team has a more diffficult time completiing the challenge.  After, we discuss how this plays out in real life.)  The topic also includes some teaching on public speaking, primarily focussed around sharing our own stories and sharing the gospel.  Each student gets an opportunity to practice preparing and speaking, after which I usually give a short evaluation.

In December when the school leader asked me to teach, I felt a little nervous about accepting.  I was hoping I would be feeling better by this time, but I wasn’t sure.  I was also afraid that I might be waddling around and unable to stand and teach for 3 hours at a time.

But I am so glad that I agreed.  Both the students and the staff made sure I was well taken care of.  (They did things like make sure I had lots of fruit and carrying water so I didn’t have to!)  I’m certainly not waddling yet, and although it was definitely more tiring than it usually is, it wasn’t too much to handle.  (Going to bed at 7:30 helped.)

Beyond those things, it was a lot of fun.  Each group has its own characteristics and personality.   Some of the last few groups have really needed to focus on simple things, like trusting each other (and being worthy of that trust), basic communication, and even motivation.  This group worked well together, despite having to communicate using more than one language.  They treated each other with respect.  They spoke up when they had ideas, listened to each other and were willing to try different solutions to problems they encountered.  They had a sense of humour.  They are committed to and passionate about learning to work in missions.

In short, they were the kind of group I always hope to work with!  It was an encouraging and satisfying week for me, and I look forward to hearing their reports when they return from outreach.