I thought I knew endurance. I raced road bikes for years and spent thousand of hours on the bike training. Building stamina and strength day in and day out. Then I met Zambian women, specifically Zambian women who VOLUNTEER as teachers in Compounds. A compound is a large poor community sort of like a slum. The farther you go into the center of a compound the worse the living conditions get. In one compound we visited had over 100,000 people living there.
In this community kids are everywhere with little to no parent supervision! The kids are raised by the community and most work the market to provide for themselves and the people they stay with. It is very humbling walking the streets and seeing the living conditions. In general the male presence in Zambia is absent. Culturally the men drink their days away and depend on the women for everything! Alcoholism is a major issue for men here and is evident by the amount of empty beer containers all over the streets.
But there is HOPE!
Women volunteer their time and energy to pour into the local kids by volunteering to be teachers at a compound school. Kids bounce from one school to the next to avoid paying fees so the class size is always changing and new faces appear everyday. The kids that show up today are not guaranteed to be there tomorrow. Yet these women manage to teach in mud brick rooms approximately 15x20ft or 8x8ft rooms. They will fit up to 50-75 kids in a room and the grades will be mixed together. Every kid has a small paper booklet where they take notes and write down lesson plans from the chalkboard. The teacher rotates the lesson plan by grade and subject. After the 7th grade every student must take an expensive standardize test in order to go on to high school and the compound schools have a higher passing rate than government schools!
Government schools have trained paid teachers, better teaching environments, and steady funding.
How is it possible that the compound schools excel over the government schools? It?s simple…the compound teachers have excellence endurance and compassion for their community! They are willing to volunteer all day, work at night making crafts to sell after school, and care after their own children.
Speaking with several of them they will tell you that God has called them to serve the kids in the community. That God gives them the endurance, strength, and joy to do it day in and day out! The work these women are doing is evident in the children lives as the regular students are passionate about learning and knowledgeable of the Gospel.
It was a privilege to meet these women, to encourage them, and most importantly to pray with them! God is doing incredible work through them as they begin to raise up the next generation.
Be Bold in pursuing your passion!
Be Intentional in relying on God?s strength to do God?s work!
