India (MNN)–One group of educators considers how best to support their counterparts in India.
Worldwide Christian School’s Jennifer Hartman says in October, they’re holding a special training conference for their teachers in Bangalore. They’re trying to offer new tools to encourage staff facing a challenging outreach.
The Christian schools represented at the conference serve the poorest of the poor in India. Many facilities not only educate orphans, they house them too. That act of compassion adds still more to the cost of running the school.
Hartman explains why they have a multi-pronged approach to the future of these schools in India: “One of the purposes is for continuing education for teachers and the Christian mission schools in India. Another one is to build an association within India because they know the most effective way to operate within each country. We’d like to help Christian mission schools to utilize and build businesses so that they are not so dependent on U-S dollars.”
But that can prove to be difficult. One teacher explained, “We refuse all government money but now we are faced with the problem that we can’t pay our teachers’ salaries. The parents are very poor and cannot afford high fees. We would love to teach with true biblical integration but we wonder how long we can even keep the school going.”
The conference, Hartman says, is a direct response to many of the teachers’ hearts for ministry. Research from past conferences showed one need. “Over and over again we’ve heard, ‘We need help with how to teach, in every subject area, biblical teaching. Is that science, is that reading? How do we do that and what resources do we use?'”
Among the resources requested, teachers say there is an urgent need in the elementary schools for each teacher to have a Bible story book. For those families who are illiterate, the request has been for the Bible on audiotape.
Pray not only for funding, but also for resources that will go to help the teachers in their ministry.
