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Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 TeacherMate - We praise God for Rachel's hard work with TeacherMate as she is working with two schools to implement the pilot program. We ask that God would keep her safe and be her source of energy as she travels in between Santo Domingo and La Romana each week. We pray that God would be working through TeacherMate to make a positive impact on students in their literacy skills. We pray for open eyes to see where He wants us to go next. Mid Year- We’re thankful for a fruitful first six months of the Edify fiscal year. We've seen 72 loans made, 400 teachers trained and over 100 school leaders trained! We lift up our work to the Lord and… Read more » |
Edify Blog
Prayer Requests from the Dominican Republic
Avoiding The Dualistic Mindset
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Most Americans are familiar with the term "separation of church and state". This term was used by Thomas Jefferson and others in the First Amendment of the Constitution to protect religious institutions from government imposition on their practices as well as preventing certain faith requirements in order to be a part of government. Unfortunately, that phrase has also contributed to the dualistic mindset that many Christians have today. "Let's separate church and state and let's separate our personal faith from our daily lives." One's faith or religious life is something that is merely personal between them and God, it usually happens on Sundays or during their morning devotional or Bible study. Work or one's job on the other hand is what is done to make a living, earn increased social status, secure a financial future and is typically not thought of in conjunction with one's spiritual life. Such a separation of the material and the physical is a dangerous trap… Read more » |
Moved by Compassion
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Recently I have caught myself using a new term: the authentic Christian school. The more I use the term the more I am beginning to ask the question, what is distinctive about an authentic Christian school? Many in Christian education are using the same qualifiers to describe a vision for Christ-centered education that has not yet been fully realized. Here is one perspective from the Association of Christian Schools International that captures this idea. Among religious schools there are many different models and approaches for defining schools along these lines. There are schools that are religious based on their affiliation with a local parish or church. There are so-called covenant schools that define themselves on the basis of adherence to a statement of faith. The covenant may apply to employees only or it may apply to parents and students as well as a condition for admission. Of course, these are institutional labels that may have only a limited impact… Read more » |
Prayer Requests from Rwanda
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Thank you for your prayers as they are such a blessing to us. Please continue to pray for us in the following ways: IEE Coaches: Our two coaches have been busy going to our schools daily to facilitate implementation of our last training content. We ask for prayer for these relationships as the coaches work with the school leadership, and work to impact these schools in a big way. School Leadership Training: Next week we will hold our second School Leadership training for the year. We will be focusing on positive discipline, active learning strategies, coaching teachers, and meeting the needs of diverse learners. We ask for open hearts from the 30 participants that are attending, and for fruitful discussion and learning. Genocide Memorial Week: April 7th through April 14th is memorial week here in Rwanda. This week marks the beginning of the 100 days of genocide that happened here in 1994. It is a time of mourning, remembrance, and forgiveness. We pray… Read more » |
Meet Frances!
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Frances Bajdik-Bova has joined the Edify team here in Rwanda! She has been living in Rwanda for 3 years. She first came to work as a teacher in a local village. The school only had a 5% pass rate on the National English Exam in 6th grade. With Frances' help, this increased to 85% in the year and a half she was working there. She worked next on developing English training curriculum for students and teachers in Musanze, a town 2 hours north of Kigali. She has an extensive background working with English Language Learners, and her passion for students, teachers, and Rwanda is truly infectous. She will be living in Kigali, working with Edify to help develop educational training materials for our partner schools. In these past two weeks, she has gotten to visit schools, and has helped prepare for our School Leadership training to be held next week. Frances certainly hit the ground running, as she has already begun… Read more » |
Snapshot of Teacher Training
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Meet Lourdes de Jesús. Lourdes recently returned to the DR from Spain where she completed two Master’s degrees in education and history. She is now working as a history professor at a local Christian university and has started a small training program that educates her community about relevant social issues such as teen pregnancy prevention, drug use, parenting skills, etc. Lourdes is one of the well-qualified teacher trainers on the APRENDI training team. She teaches Discipline in the Classroom and Making Learning Fun within the network of schools Edify serves in the DR. Lourdes sees a dire need in the area of education in her country and feels compelled to do something about. She says, “Teachers are not equipped when they leave the university and enter the classroom to teach. We can see it in the mistreatment of students here which is a serious problem. It’s not reflective of bad teachers as much as… Read more » |
Prayer Requests from the Dominican Republic
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"Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!" Psalm 4:1 Partnerships - We praise God for the lending and training partners we are blessed with in the DR: ASPIRE, APRENDI and Esperanza. We pray that God would continue to unite us in our joint efforts to improve the quality of education here. New ASPIRE employees- We're grateful to welcome a few new ASPIRE employees who will be working specifically with Edify loans. Andres is a new loan officer in Santo Domingo and Miguel is the new school loans program manager. We pray for both of these men and ask that their transitions would go smoothly and that God would bless their work in the months and years to come. New office- The Esperanza-Edify office has moved! We are thankful for our new office space and ask that God would be present in the details and logistics of the… Read more » |
Prayer Requests for the Dominican Republic
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We thank God for those of you who are praying for us and with us. You are a blessing. Ada's back - Ada Ortiz is the School Development Supervisor for Esperanza-Edify and has played an instrumental role in Edify's work with Esperanza. Ada has been experiencing back pain. She recently discovered that she has two herniated disks and was working from home. We praise God that she is back in the office today! But also for Ada's recovery and ask that God would ease her pain. We pray that she would feel God's presence in this difficult time. She begins physical therapy this week. Teacher Mate Pilot- We'll be starting the Teacher Mate pilot here in the DR at the end of this month. We ask for wisdom and guidance for Rachel as she dedicates her time to this project. We pray for success with this program but also for open hearts to see where God wants us to go with it. AMO- We've begun… Read more » |
Education in the Family
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In this first of a series of posts on education (broadly defined), I will mediate on education within the family. This girl wags her finger "no". We love seeing an opinion being expressed. It is our hope that the students in these schools would think critically about their lives, their environment and their world. My dad used to joke with me; “just send me the bill.” The sense was to bill him for the counseling I’d seek for my traumatic childhood. He said this, for example, when I flushed red at him singing to my carpool friends. But the joke is poignant: none of us have a neutral childhood. It is within a… Read more » |
Snapshot of AMO Follow-Up
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We’ve seen that follow-up meetings after AMO trainings play a crucial role in ensuring successful implantation of the program. This month I was able to attend a follow-up meeting with an Esperanza employee named Raquel, who dedicates almost all her time to providing follow-up for the schools Esperanza works with. We went to visit Colegio Pedro Mir in San Pedro de Macorís. Raquel typically meets with the teachers who attended training and the director of the school. In the case of Pedro Mir, only one teacher has been trained so Raquel met with her and the director. The meeting began with a discussion about how things were going with the AMO program and they mentioned that they were struggling with the prayer and blessing cards, which are used as a tool for students to reach out and connect to their parents by involving them in their AMO class. Parents receive a prayer or… Read more » |
