Reaching The Beginning
For several years I ran 5K races. I never set any records, and my personal best never placed me in first or second in my age bracket. Once I was third, but I can’t assure you that I didn’t place solely because there were three people in my age bracket. However, I loved the feeling of competing, and it added discipline to my health routine.
What I always admired were the semi-professional runners who would run a few kilometers before the race to warm up. They’d arrive ready and able to win the race, having already run a mini-race. And at the crack of the gun they moved quickly out of sight.
In some ways, the past two and a half years have been a race to the starting line, and now we’re in that final kick - not to the finish line, but to a starting line. Today we finished four weeks of teacher training. It was exciting to announce to the educational team that we were going to celebrate by taking them to Lake Malawi for the day. At least one of them had never been to the lake in her life. The experience will continue to build the bonds that we see emerging as God forges a highly functional team of educators. Please pray for safety as we travel.
School starts on September 22. This will give our teachers three weeks to prepare their classrooms, design their lesson plans, as well as work on biblical, entrepreneurship, and leadership integration. They’ll also have time to improve their familiarity with the curriculum for their courses.
I’m excited to let you know that we now have 27 students who have reserved spots at Good Soil Academy. Our sponsored scholarship students are capped only by the available sponsorships, and if God leads you to sponsor a young student, now is the time to give and to let us know that you want to sponsor a girl. The need remains huge. There are far from enough public school seats in Malawi to accommodate students, and we have the capacity to educate up to 90 students in Form 1 (freshman year). Most importantly, we are called to raise up a generation of leaders who not only will be leaders, and job creators, but will also break the cycle of systemic corruption that exists in Malawi by living out the Jesus life.
I love Paul’s words - “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14). This is a long race, measured not in four years, but probably by a generation. But we’ve loved the run up to the starting line, and we’re looking forward to running the actual race.
For His kingdom,
DeanP.S. This race has hurdles - and we seek your prayers that we’d clear these hurdles as we launch the school.