Men’s program update– teaching, building and gaining speed!

I have promised you an update on ministry. Thanks for your patience.

Paul- the Men’s apprentice program and his “fix it” ministry.

Paul’s work at the shop continues to grow each month. It has been almost a year now that we broke ground and were working on creating a shop space from scratch on an uneven, hot, rocky/sandy piece of ground. But in a prime location with big trees and shared space with a ministry partner organization.

The beginnings of land preparation in May 2014

Getting the trusses for the roof up after the land was even and the side containers were in place.

The space is finally covered and the guys are out of the hot sun! The machines are in and now they are building shelving and racks and looking to pour a cement part this summer 2015.

Paul has four full time apprentices in his training program, with various other guys joining them depending on the size of the contract projects they get and his capacity to teach certain skills to larger groups. The 4 guys are all Tuaregs and we are thrilled to see how much determination they have and how they desire to learn and do good work.

After the hands on work part of the day, there are also theory classes taught later in the afternoon. You can see their blackboard in the foreground and their “class” space. They choose to stay at the shop area to learn rather than going to our actual classroom space at the NVOC school so they would not have to waste time moving around. So far it has really worked out great.

Some of the projects they have been working on has to been to refurbish 40+ desks that were burned in a fire at a Christian school and to build approximately 60 new desks that had been stolen so that the school has all their desks again. This kind of practice with repetitive cutting and welding has been great for their learning and the school is thankful for the quality and oversight the shop provides.

A burnt out classroom with bent and burned desks

New desks getting their coat of rust paint before the wooden tops were attached and they were delivered.

Happy kids with their new desks!

Other projects they have been working on include a custom topper for the back of a truck, a custom drill bit for water drilling, shelving units and a truck hitch! They are just looking at upcoming projects of church benches, a new outdoor church building frame with a tin roof, water towers and maybe a whole contract to be the fabricator for a huge radio antenna tower! He has enough interest and clients that they can be picky and take only the jobs that will best benefit the learning of the guys!

So how does it work? The guys get a small daily stipend to be in our program through the normal day in and day out, even if there are no paying contracts. This allows them to stay in the program and yet still provide the necessities for their families. When we have paying clients, their daily rate increases and they sometimes add an extra day of work. So they love getting jobs. Plus they really do enjoy seeing a finished product delivered and the pride of knowing “We did that!!”

Please keep praying for these guys. During morning prayer time many of them are engaging and requesting prayer. Paul is navigating the next steps of starting some more formal storying or bible studies with them. One of them recently asked for an mp3 player with bible stories on it. Two of them are married and can use prayers as they desire to be good husbands and fathers to their children. We want to continue investing in their lives and visiting them in their homes as well. Chantelle loves to spend time with the two wives, both of whom are Tuareg young ladies.

That’s it for now- you are up to speed on the Men’s program! Coming soon- the Women’s side program update!

It's been too long! Life in Niger update

So, it has been a long time! Rest assured we are still here in Niger happily occupied with life. I find this term I am much busier with my family , and then my ministry, and thus time for things like blogging has taken a back seat. If you want to hear regularly what we are up to, you can send me an email and I can add you to our weekly update email, which always contains little snippets of what we are up to and a few photos each week.

Since we last wrote, we had Christmas, a trip to Turkey, lots of family adventures, Paul made serious progress on the mens shop and we are busy as always at the school for girls we run.

But all in due time. That would be one very long post indeed! So let me start by giving a short-ish family update and what we have been up to in general life the last 5 months!

Ella turned one year old on October 18th and since that time she has really taken off to develop quite the strong personality, love of books, pizza, lip balm and pens/markers. She is so funny and keeps us on our toes. Arielle is in Grade 3 this year and she loves to read as well as do crafts, swim and play games (as long as they are not too strategy oriented). She is a quiet girl who shows a love of cooking with her Mom and helping others. Bennett is in Grade 4 this year and he is all about action. He loves sports (especially soccer and hockey), math, board games (especially if they are very strategy oriented) and snuggling. He is very compassionate to others and asks lots of great questions to understand better the world around him. He also loves music. Being a Mom is so rewarding and takes most of my effort and energy and I am blessed to be able to form and invest in the lives of these little people. The greatest gift given to Paul and I!

We also got to go to Turkey for a work conference at the end of December and since we were going to be there anyways, we went a week early to enjoy a bit of a break as a family with most of our teammates to spend the actual Christmas holidays. Such a great idea!  So blessed and so encouraged and educated by this trip!

Back here in Niger we enjoy the city where we live, the many amazing friends we have, celebrations in their lives like marriages, baptisms and school events. So many faces we have grown to love and spend much of our time with in their homes and in our schools with them. I will write a ministry update on both the mens and womens program in the near future, but these are just a few snapshots of the joys we are surrounded with!

And then of course, one more thing. Some of the beautiful sites of Niger that we get to enjoy from natural sites, animals to man made beauty! The dunes, Parc W, the giraffes and more! Come and visit us and we promise you will get to enjoy these wonders alongside us!

And so it begins…

Today was the first day of school for our new cycle of young ladies at the “Girls at Risk” school program here in Niamey, Niger. If you would like to know more about our school you can check it out at www.nvoc.ca

We were so excited to see each and every girl who had registered show up and ready to start. We have 11 girls on a waiting list and more today showed up to try to register. Sadly we do not have the physical space to be able to hold all the girls who would like to enter, but we are thankful for each one we do have!

Last week we had our community open house where we verified all the registrations, expanded our waiting list and fielded lots of questions from parents. We are so thankful over the years for the support we have gotten from the parents in the community!

Then today we started. All of our new girls came and we spent the morning doing entrance interviews, Math and French placement tests and health statistics like their weight and height (to track their progress with our medical clinic and nutrition program). It took a long time and it was hot and sweaty, but we broke it up with snacks, cold juice and lots of laughter!

I am so excited to meet these young ladies. We will be working this year with 25 new girls between the ages of 11.5 and 18. I am excited to see how much they want to learn and how eager they are and I can just imagine all that God will do in their lives and how they will blossom. We also will work with 10 graduates from our previous program as apprenticeship and leadership training.

We started the morning off in prayer with the Girls. We know it is important they see us as people of prayer who care for them and will pray for them and journey with them. I look forward to every week as we will ask for prayer requests and pray for the issues and people dear to their hearts.

Speaking of prayer, we will soon be sending out prayer partnerships. If you would like to be included in our list of partners and be assigned a young lady to lift up in prayer, please let us know.

And so it begins. A new group of 25 girls and a returning apprentice level of 10 returning grads. Each and every one a gift to us. We are blessed indeed.

4 of our returning graduates, all excited to be back!

Miriama (returning grad) and her baby Fatima. So excited to see how these young ladies have grown into wonderful mothers with healthy children!

We have Kerri-Jo Fehr, from Fort St. John, BC (Canada) joining us as an intern this year. Here she is with Raichatou.

Our youngest students! A new dynamic with some of our staff and returning grads having babies around! On some days there will be 6 babies present!

Weighing and measuring the girls.

Amina giving the French placement exams.

After giving out a quilted thick blanket to each girl as cold season is coming, the girls listen to basic rules and instructions from our sewing staff.

The new girls class for 2014! Thanks for praying for them!!