Rehoboth

Saturday was a day out to make a trip to Athirappilly Falls near Thrissur.

Kerala is a beautiful place, so much greenery and many exotic flowers and plants.

If you’re following the blog and wondering why I haven’t posted pictures of kids, just to let you know that this is not advisable.  I hope that when I am back many of you will have an opportunity to be at a presentation when I can share information more freely.  Many marvelous stories of God working miracles in the lives of the children and also in the now adults that were once part of Rehoboth.

Pray for RTI (Rehoboth Theological Institute) which has about 50 students in three levels of programs.  Again it’s amazing to see God at work in the young men and women that are coming to the college.  Many come from areas that are very hostile to the Gospel.  They go back and fearlessly proclaim the Good News.

It’s been a growing experience for me to be preaching every Sunday!  The first Sunday was at a new church in which nine men working at a printing factory owned by Christians have come to the Lord.  They are all Hindi speaking since they come to Kerala looking for work.  Remember that Kerala speaks Malayalam.  Hindi is a Northern language and kids in the school learn Hindi as a subject.  Six were baptized recently, and one of them has been disowned by his family for becoming a Christian.  As I spoke it was double translated, since some in the congregation only speak Malayalam and others only speak Hindi.

The second Sunday I was at Zion, the local Brethren Assembly on the Rehoboth property.  It’s a three hour Malayalam service.  I spoke for nearly an hour – yes an hour – though it was translated into Malayalam.  Last Sunday I was at the English service at East Fort which is mostly the students from RTI and others in the community that don’t speak Malayalam.  The students at RTI are encouraged to learn English, and since they come from about a dozen different States they all speak various languages.  English is their common language.

I’m working on the library and the computer lab in particular at the school.  Changing the dynamic in the school to get better technology, information access, and making resource-based learning part of everyday teaching and learning is a challenge.  I may be calling on some of you that are fellow-librarians to assist 🙂  The goal is to set up an open and flexible Library Resource Centre by the end of this school year as well as a Teacher Resource Room.  Also all those wonderful subscriptions we rely on at Heritage Christian Online School, I’m wanting to make some of them available to the staff and students so that they have better resources that can easily be accessed and printed.  Many don’t have computers at home since the school is serving mostly families that are lower income.

John