Steve and Gerdine Stanley recently shared that after four months of Monday-Friday classes the eleven Kovol literacy students have finished the literacy programme. The occasion was marked by a huge party. Hundreds of people from all the Kovol villages and some neighbouring tribes came to feast and see the students receive their certificates.
This marks the end of “tuition” for the first students, but they still have a lot of practice to get in! The team is going straight into a graded reading and writing task course – ‘The 9-hole programme,’ which is timed to increase reading speed and accuracy. It is a little less intense than the literacy course. It will be on three mornings a week. The students are so keen that they are expecting to continue to see perfect attendance.
The strong El Nino caused a shift in weather so that they are seeing less rain than normal this dry season. It meant rationing water and hauling some from a stream ten minutes downhill but things now seem to be back to normal again.
Gerdine has been fitting in language study in between home schooling three children. Recently two consultants gave her a language evaluation, and she’s improved from her last check, and is on the verge of level 7 (out of 9). Currently she’s still at level 6 but now knows what to focus on over the next months.
The initial evangelistic Bible teaching (phase 1) is still being prepared. There’s a long road ahead to get the material ready, but there has been steady progress.
Currently the team are about a third of the way:
280 Bible verses consultant checked.
310 additional Bible verses drafted and comprehension checked.
806 Bible verses to begin translating.
14 Phase 1 lessons written and comprehension checked.
33 Phase 1 lessons to still translate.
Pray for endurance!
The fortnightly games morning for Kovol kids that the team have been running has been great fun, especially in dry season. They have now started to add a short Bible lesson to the end of the games. Steve took the first phase 1 lesson, summarised it down for children and taught that lesson. With kid’s club happening once every two weeks they should have no problem keeping up with preparing the lessons for it. This gives an opportunity to practice teaching and try out the vocabulary they are thinking of using for phase 1 lessons.
The literacy graduates will soon need Kovol language reading material to keep literacy skills high. The team have sent 16 booklets to the print shop and have their work cut out to continue to produce new booklets. They also need to figure out the practicalities of a library. Where, when, who and how supervised? Pray they would find good solutions that are reproducible in other Kovol villages.