Lovea – Love-A-Village

Jan 2022

Dear Supporters

I am happy to be writing my first letter for the new year. I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas holiday. My family and I had a good time during Christmas, and we are all doing well.

I am grateful and appreciative of your support for the past year, and look forward to your continued support in the years ahead.

Preparation for English School

As you know, Love-A-Village team and I have been preparing the school.

Let me summarize what we have done thus far:

We had applied for the school renewal license, and have received verbal approval from the authorities
The Peam Primary School principal had identified 64 students for enrolment into our school
The textbooks for pupils and Teachers’ Instruction books have been printed
The classroom is now set up for classes to start
We have hired a teacher and an assistant teacher

There are a few things we need to get done before our school opens on 7 February:

Final touches to the classroom, e.g. decorations to the walls
Printing of Safe Management guide and School Rules and Regulations
Training the teachers to use the Teachers’ Instruction book
Meeting with students and their parents

All students, and their parents too, are very excited to attend our school.

Peam Sunday School Ministry

We had a great meeting with all Sunday School teachers from Peam village and Lovea village. We discussed and planned what we hope to do in 2022. We prayed together for sustained motivation to do God’s work.

The teachers have started using the new curriculum. Because of the Covid situation, our Sunday School has separated the children into 8 groups with each group having 16 to 20 children. The students come only on alternate weeks:

Groups 1 – 4 study in week 1 and 3
Groups 5 – 8 study in week 2 and 4

For both the English School and the Sunday School, I am so blessed to have wonderful people working with me. I pray that God will bring even more people to join us in our work to glorify His name.

Thanksgiving for:

Wonderful lunch retreat with all teachers
My daughter being in secondary school
All parents allowing their children to study in our English School
Wonderful team work for English School
Good health

Prayer Request:

Official renewal of school license
School opening on 7 February
All teachers to have wisdom and strength to serve the Lord

Thank You and Happy New Year!

Jan 2022 Read More »

My Second Visit to Pagna English School, Lovea Village By Peter

This was my second visit to the school. The first was over a weekend meeting with Mr Pagna that was quiet and business-like. This was different; the classroom was packed with students, children were loitering around waiting for their classes to start and the voice of the children reciting English statements rang aloud in unison. The enthusiasm was overwhelming.

There are two beginners’ classes in the morning. The first is simply called ‘ABC’. It focuses on word recognition and pronunciation. In this class, the teacher drew pictures on the whiteboard for children to take turns to identify them and to write the first alphabet of the word. The second class is called ‘SPELL’, which as the name suggests, focuses on learning to spell words correctly. Here, we enjoyed watching competitions between pairs of students dashing up to the whiteboard to point at words read out by the teacher. What came next was a pleasant surprise; those statements were sang into melodies. I cannot but appreciate the variety in the manner the lessons were delivered despite of the absence of teaching materials.

In between the classes, we talked with the teachers and the top two needs raised were

1. Student textbooks and workbooks

2. Improving the level of English competency among the teachers

Since there are no street lights in the village, I was expecting the six night classes to have fewer students. But I was wrong! In fact, the night classes were more packed.

As I observed one of the classes, I smiled to myself because I noticed two teachers who taught in the afternoon’s pre-school level seated among the students. The teachers want to improve their own level of English competency so that they can be better teachers! A song came to my mind, ‘And the Gift goes….. on and on and on’.

The 2 ladies in red (middle of picture) were teaching the afternoon classes.

After this visit, I feel very heartened by the dedication and passion of the teachers to teach and learn English. It is our prayer that their good work will continue so that they can benefit Lovea Village.