Teachers

The good news for the week is that Elizabeth (the new short term teacher) not only has her passport in hand but has also purchased her plane tickets. She and Tara (another teacher headed to another village) plan to arrive in Papua New Guinea on June 20th. Needless to say, we are very excited. She will spend a few days in Goroka to do shopping, set up a bank account, etc. and then, Lord willing, will fly to a grass airstrip about a 2-3 hour drive from our village. That airstrip has been closed for repairs for several weeks, so please pray that it will reopen in time for her arrival.

While having Elizabeth come will definitely be a huge help to the school, we still have some needs that I want to share with you. The most immediate is for an experienced teacher to come out this summer, even if just for a few weeks. Ideally, we would need someone that is experienced in using the Bob Jones University Press curriculum with the elementary grades. We mainly need someone to compare the BJU curriculum with the curriculum used in the PNG schools and develop a placement test to determine the PNG grades that are equivalent to the grades in our school. We know that our students are several grades ahead of their counterparts in the PNG schools, but it is hard for us noneducation people to evaluate this accurately.

In addtion, of course, we are still in great need of more teachers for next school year. At present, Randy Smith, the senior missionary, really doesn't have peace about me continuing to teach in the school as that is not really the ministry that I came here to do (and actually is occupying time that I would prefer to devote to other ministries). We have also recognized that it really is not wise, especially for a non-teacher, to teach more than one grade simultaneously. So, with our present personnel, it looks like we might only be able to offer one grade next year in the school. Please pray that the Lord will provide more teachers, ideally an experienced teacher to meet this need.

As I've mentioned before, if you feel the Lord directing you toward either of these opportunities that I've mentioned, please contact Gospel Fellowship Association for further information.