Every week Rev. Elenga comes to share the stories of how the CHE (Community Health Evangelism) initiative went during his weekly visits to Bogbakole and Botakambia. It is fun to listen to him share the stories, to see his passion for what he’s doing and to praise God with him for how the participants are growing and learning. Some excerpts:
- At Bogbakole the participants told him they want a spiritual lesson every week so he is doing that. There are many, many lessons to teach and they often draw more than one teaching from any story.
- After completing the lesson for the CHEs (Community Health Evangelists or those who go door to door to share what they learned) about how to do an assessment of the village one of the CHEs commented “wow, I think that I need to improve my latrine if I am to be seen as an example for others.” Yes, indeed! (The assessment is an important step so that they learn what the status of various practices are in the village and can later determine if there has been any change.)
- Last week he was teaching the lesson about “Ideas have Consequences.” It has been a hard lesson for people to grasp, but per his description they seemed to be getting it. See below.
We are encouraged to hear of their passion for the Word.
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IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES
Using this picture he divided the participants into two groups and had them assign: Consequences, Behavior, Fruit and Beliefs to the different parts of the tree: Trunk, Branches, Fruit and Roots.
Where do the different labels go?
Once completed, they return to the large group, tell how they did the exercise and why they made the decisions they did. Then he goes over the correct answers as indicated below, explaining it all and helping them understand why the beliefs and values they hold have the consequences, fruits, they do. He said it was a fascinating discussion. This idea will keep coming up over and over again as the CHEs and village committee grow in taking charge of their own development and future.
The next teaching is to use this concept and label it a Problem Tree. The exercise is to pick a problem (fruit) that concerns them and work backwards to learn what behaviors, values and beliefs are related to the problem. Again, this exercise will be repeated over and over.
It is all GREAT stuff and fun, fun to hear Rev. Elenga recount how the lessons go. Thank you for your prayers for transformation in these two villages.
