Today was a wonderful day of celebration at Erute Farm Prison, which started their first Hands Across Nations (HAN) “Ber Atek” literacy program in the Lango Language in January 2017. As their work at the prison includes 6 days a week working in the prison farm from 7:30 am to 2-3 pm, it took them a year to complete their primers and graduate in January this year.
Erute Prison Literacy Graduates, January 2018
Immediately after their graduation, men who had completed the program wanted to become teachers for the next class. Twelve of them completed the intensive Teacher Training Workshop this past week. What was different about the class was that our Head Teacher Trainer, Peter, was out of commission with Malaria, Typhoid and Brucellosis, and had a neck and back injury. He has never missed training a new class of teachers. The four remaining teachers in the prison, didn’t miss a step in preparing and training the 17 student-teachers on their own.
I visited their class twice and found they were quickly becoming proficient in the techniques used in the “Learning to Read to Read the Bible Program”. Peter was quite pleased with the student-teacher’s level of ability to teach a full lesson without his oversight! These were the very first teachers in the entire Hands Across Nations literacy program that were not taught by Peter. That is quite an amazing step forward as Peter has been responsible for being a part of the training for over 3,000 teachers since 2014! WAY TO GO ERUTE PRISON TEACHER TRAINERS! We are proud of you!
George Lameck, ESL Teacher-Trainer Extraordinaire
Secondly this past week, Lameck George, our best Teacher and Teacher-Trainer in the HAN English as a Second Language Program (ESL) in both Lira and Oyam Prisons was scheduled to be transferred to Erute Prison to train New ESL teachers. Instead, he was suddenly exonerated and released! Within a week he volunteered to return to Erute Prison, as a free man, to train 5 new ESL teachers!
Happy New ESL Teachers
Congratulations to the new HAN Literacy and ESL Teachers! They’re #1!
A new “Ber Atek” literacy class and the first ESL class will begin at Erute in 2 days!! The effort these men have put into teaching their fellow prisoners to read and write in their tribal language, especially after a full day of digging in the prison gardens, is truly a labor of love and compassion. They are the living example of doing what Jesus said was the second most important of God’s laws after loving God first – “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
In the Bible, Matthew 22: 37-40 says: 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
We are seeing men and women, through “Learning to Read to Read the Bible” whose lives are radically changing as they learn of God’s love for them and the joy of living for God by loving their fellow prisoners.
Currently there are 20 released prisoners who are voluntarily working with Hands Across Nations in their communities, and/or returning to the prisons, training literacy teachers and coordinating classes for their neighbors and Parish Churches. We are seeing God’s hand in using the “least of these” to elevate their own people in reading, writing and knowing God’s Word. What a blessing to be able to see it happening right berfore our eyes! Halleluiah!
