Month 9 on the World Race has meant that once again it’s time for me to crank out the lesson plans, put on my teacher clothes (WR style), and pray for patience every morning as I walk into my classroom full of 25ish students. Team Unashamed is in southern Nepal in a village called Haripur, and our ministry this month is teaching in an elementary school. This isn’t your average government school though, it’s a school started by pastors as part of a ministry plan to prevent trafficking of young children from Nepal to India.
The ministry is now called New Light Nepal, and it believes that, apart from winning over the communities with the love of Jesus, educating children is the most effective way to prevent the trafficking that happens so commonly in the border villages. Haripur sits about 20 kilometers from the border of India. Around 15,000 Nepali girls are trafficked to India every year, most commonly for the sex industry. Because of the predominately Hindu population and lack of modernization, the worth granted to females in Nepali culture is devastatingly low. Young village girls are sold by their parents to pay for a new tin roof for their house. Before the age of 10, they are sold off in marriages with 19-20 year old men as part of the father’s efforts to get to a better afterlife. They are sent to work in factories to earn money for their families, with no time or hope for an education or a brighter future. It’s a heartbreaking reality that these things really happen in the village I am living in this month, as well as in many more impoverished villages across Nepal.
Talk about motivating a teacher! I am overjoyed to be using my skills in the classroom again in the hopes of giving these children a better future. Our school is named Haripur Prashansa Academy, and it hosts pre-school to 5th grade. There is also a special transition class for new students who are sponsored to receive this education, and have never been to school until two months ago. This is the class I teach 🙂 I love my kids, who range in ages from 3 to 10, as far as I can tell (not everyone knows their age). As a high school Spanish teacher, it is very challenging to be thrown into a mixed age, mixed ability elementary classroom without a translator or any resources. There are no books for my class, no flashcards or pictures or books to read, no manipulatives, no crayons or markers, and no bright, neat, discipline charts where I can send kids to pull cards when they are disruptive. I have to be creative…really really creative, in order to keep my three year olds focused while trying to challenge my ten year olds. And well, discipline, that’s an entirely different ballgame when you don’t speak a lick of Nepali and they don’t speak a lick of English. Simple instructions like “raise your hand”, “listen”, “eyes here”, and “point to the letter ‘A’” become a task just to get across. Do you see why I mentioned praying for patience every day?
In spite of all the difficulties of this ministry, I love being here; I love these kids; I love teaching. There is such worth in what we’re doing here in this place, not only because of the information we are teaching the kids, but also with the guidance and ideas we can provide the teachers for them to use with future classes. From what I’ve seen of Nepali village teachers, they are not equipped with effective teaching strategies. The only method of instruction is rote memorization, which means the teacher says something and the students repeat it a thousand times till they remember how to say or respond to something. While there is a place for this type of memorization in some areas of learning, I don’t believe the children’s brains are being fully developed with logical or critical thinking skills. My team has noticed this and has made a point to be creative with our lessons and show the teachers some types of activities that require the students to think and draw conclusions in more ways. We also clearly see a distinction between discipline systems here vs. in the States, and although it is not our purpose to make this school look like an American school, we are trying to demonstrate to the teachers how to be more gentle and compassionate towards the kids while still keeping their respect and obedience.
Outside of school, we get to play with the children, who are always eager to give hearty high-fives and pose for pictures. We are also preaching at church services, which are held on Saturdays here. I gave the sermon last week on the topic of “The Cost of Being a Disciple of Jesus”, and I believe it went well and the Lord blessed the message. One day we also hiked up a nearby mountain for “mountain prayer” and spent the day lifting up the school and church ministries, the Christians around Nepal, the Nepali government and leaders, and our team’s efforts here this month. We are sharing a living space with another awesome team, Team “Hungry for DeliFrance”, whose ministry is focused towards the parents of the village children and showing them the love of Jesus as well as instructing them about the benefits of sending their kids to school. It has been a great start to our month so far and I am looking forward to much more laughter and love in the coming days.
