bear update & photovoice

I wanted to thank you all for praying for Bear. Bear said thank you too! He is doing really well; he had a great week facilitating a training-of-trainers workshop, and he's diving headlong into language lessons now. He's planning on doing a little bit of travel in the upcoming days, just a little bit east of where he's living now, with the head of the organization he's working with.

A funny thing happened at a get-together here last night, at a friend's house. I ran into a family that I'd met back in March (haven't seen them since; their daughter is here in Rwanda, and we don't cross paths too much because of our busy schedules; her parents live back in the States and happen to be visiting her again).

When I met the family in March, the mom had told me about her husband, how he had lived for a while in the same central Asian country where Bear works, and how there's a whole support network in the USA for workers in that country. I had forgotten about it until recently, but maybe last week I remembered our conversation and was interested in knowing more. I had even gone to Facebook this week to try to contact their daughter and find out more info from the mom....and then what do you know, I end up at a party with the mom herself last night. :) Do you believe in coincidences? Me neither.

At any rate, it was great to get connected with the mom again (and the rest of the family, too, actually....they are quite an interesting family). Through her I hope to connect up with the support network in the USA, who actually has yearly meetings all over the country.

Today I am looking forward to hanging out with the youth from Baraka's church for a few hours...we're going to do PhotoVoice together! My adult fellowship back home, Interior (shout out to this awesome Ev Free Fullerton gang!) supplied disposable cameras for a group of teenagers here. So today, after we go through the good Samaritan story together (the teens will do a mini-drama for one another), the teens will receive a camera. We'll talk about camera care and photography etiquette (and also just basic picture-taking skills, since many may have never used a camera before). Then they'll go out into the community in small groups and take photos of the various needs they see. They'll also take photos of things that they're proud of in their community, and thankful for.

Once the photos are developped, we'll get together again and the teens will sort through their photos and present their work to one another. Then all together, they'll decide on how they can help to meet some of the needs that they identified in their community, how they can show mercy and compassion in a tangible way, to serve those around them on behalf of the One Who has showed us so amazingly how to serve. Thanks for your prayers!! And thanks again to Interior for supplying the cameras!! I'll keep you posted.