(continued from Part 1)
Most of us on the team have been working in the classrooms the last few days alongside the teachers and teachers’ aides.It’s been an interesting dynamic, partly because they’ve been burned by groups coming in to help in the past.
And partly because WHCC isn’t representative of most Australian or Aboriginal schools.
The staff – teachers, aides, admin, house parents – is great, but (in all truthfulness) I don’t think they know quite what to do with us.
Our learning curve is that because they didn’t know we were coming necessarily, and because of having been burned in the past, we always need to be asking them what we can do for them.
They’re not going to ask us to do much of anything.
Another thing about the staff is that the turn-over rate is incredibly high. With a few exceptions, most people haven’t been here for more than a few months.
The students are a trial.
They’re in the middle of an Aboriginal community in the center of a national park, and cut off from basically everything and everyone.
And while they’ve been called to this place, they’re burning out. Aussies, South Africans, Americans… everyone.
So in the few days we’ve been here, we’ve come to realize something huge.
As much as our ministry is to pour into the lives of the kids here, it’s to pour even more into the staff.
They’re the ones who live and work here with these kids.
They’ll be the ones still here when we leave at the end of next week.
And they’re the ones who need to be encouraged the most.
If this is meant to be a turning point, and we are part of it, then they need us to step up and do that.
Pray that we can be.
