So last weekend we had twenty teachers, pastors, and administrators from all over the country to the guesthouse for a training of sorts. You might be asking how that came about. Well when we met with Abaana UK, it was suggested that we have a training for teachers to help them with their prayer times at school. While I have been out visiting school and evaluating what I saw I was able to deliver the invitations to the schools. Since we were going to have them at the house we thought it would be good to teach them basic first aid. Also, I learned that most of them did not have a sex education program or they used the governments and it was good. So why not throw some sex in with the word of God?
Teachers began arriving at noon. That was only 6 hours early. We, as the team, had already had a long day and had gotten stuck downtown in the rain. We were worried about making it back on time so we split up so someone was there. By 7 we had all the teachers except from two schools so we got started. We did a little intro and then ate dinner. After dinner, I started us out on speaking and learning techniques. We talked about being sensory learners and how we could incorporate that into whatever we were talking about. Then we talked about sight, hearing, and touch being the three main ways we would teach in class and I went over a couple of object lessons to help them understand what I was talking about.
Saturday we had breakfast and got started early with object lessons. Some of you may not know that I have done seminars for a couple of years on this topic at youth events so this was not new to me. It was knew giving it to a room full of Ugandans. The language barrier wasn’t too big of a problem because I talked really slow. We talked about attention span and how it is important to understand we have to change things in order to keep their attention. Finally, we went through several examples and I let them come up with ways it related to God. As we ended I gave them the assignment to bring an object lesson from each school before I talked to them later.
Then, Katie came in to start us out on sex education. Most Americans get shy or uneasy just when you bring that up, but trust me we are more open than Ugandans so imagine how they felt. We told them it was OK and that we wanted the conversation to be relaxed and that it would be funny at times but we were all adults. She talked about why it was important for them to teach sex education at school. We learned how most of them found out, which was through their peers. Then we went into the myths they had heard about sex. Needless to say this was quite funny. However, it is also a shame that some people believe in certain techniques for protection. After we gave some facts to replace the myths, it was time for a break. After the break we started CPR. I got to be the dummy, no mouth to mouth though. CPR took awhile and we were only able to start into other areas for a few minutes before we broke for lunch.
After lunch each school presented their object lesson to the others so they could have 7 more examples to use for teaching. Some were better than others, but I could tell that each one had learned the basic idea behind using the senses to teach. The Katie came back to talk through the parts of the body and how to teach these topics to the kids. Finally we finished up with a quick run through of first aid care, cuts, sprains, broken bones, and burns. Next Pamela, who is head of Abaana Uganda, spoke with them about end of the year reports and improvements at the schools. Last, I left them with a devotional about allowing God to use them and trusting in His power.
Although when you read it, and if you were here, it doesn’t seem as though we did a whole lot. But it is amazing how thankful they were for what we could teach them. Overall it went better than I think we could have imagined. Who knows there may be thousands of children who now know more about sex because of Katie and that in itself is pretty funny and amazing.
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