July 15th, 2006
I have mentioned on here many times our connection with
Niger in West Africa but I haven’t talked much about what we did there. I thought I would share a little of our journey towards going to Africa and its impact on our lives over the next few posts or so.
Before I do let me say that when we went to Niger, we went as completely unqualified staff. We were teachers at
Sahel Academy but we pretty much learnt how to be teachers as we went. Now, to anyone who is a qualified teacher that sounds pretty bad but in many of the MK (missionary kid) schools around the world this is the case because not enough qualified teachers go.
If you are reading this and thinking, ‘there is no way I could live in Africa and teach like that’ then I would encourage you to keep checking back and read through our experiences in how the Lord sent us to Niger.
Like most missions
SIM is desperate for teachers in their schools. These schools are filled with the children of missionaries and without them the missionaries would most likely have to return home.
At present the list for teachers needed in SIM schools (and there are hundreds of MK schools around the world, these are just the ones run or associated with SIM) is way too long for me to post here. It would take you too long to read the whole list so if you are feeling the pull or know a Christian teacher who may be interested you can read the whole list here.
I will however highlight the needs at Sahel Academy in Niger, West Africa where we went for a year in 2000-2001. Here’s the list for the coming school year, starting in a month or so:
Sahel Academy, Niger
Staffing needs for 2006/2007
High School English and Social Studies
Technology teacher
Principal
Librarian
Secondary Maths/Science
Computer Instructor
Bible teacher
Dorm Parent assistant
Music teacher
Teacher’s aide
Art teacher
Dean of secondary students
Elementary French teacher
Physical Education teacher
Secretary and bookkeeping
Looking at that list you have to ask yourself, ‘what teachers do they actually have and how can they run the school without them?’. The answer is that anyone who is there already teaching will end up wearing many hats, qualified or not and juggling many roles and generally ending up very worn out at the end of each term.
I hope you enjoy our journey into going to Niger as it was a turning point in our long-term plans.
July 14th, 2006
The IF theme this week is ’sacrifice’. What a shame because the entry I did a few weeks back for angels and devils would have been perfect!! Anyway, instead I’m putting this one in:
This is done using the photocopy transfer method, acrylic on wood and a fine brush, oh and I sepia-ed it on my comptuer for effect (is that allowed?).
This is my great-grandfather Jack (sitting centre) and his mates. You guessed it, they are all in their uniforms (Australian Army) and this was taken during the last world war. War and the word sacrifice go hand in hand so I thought this was appropriate.
July 14th, 2006
The theme for PF this week is ‘Remarkable’. I could have put up a photo of some amazing sunset, object or something else interesting but instead I’m choosing to put this picture of my parents (Trevor and Estelle Burns). Why, well I think they’re remarkable.
They moved to Papua New Guinea in 2000 as long-term missionaries with
New Tribes Mission. They’d never lived overseas before this. They were both nearing 50 when they moved there . They had to learn a new language and adapt to a new culture. Before they knew it they were flying over volcanoes in a helicopter. My Dad nows runs the Tribal Resource Centre there and Mum is currently working in the finance office. Prior to this they’d only lived in Australia and worked in an Australian context. I reckon they are pretty remarkable.
July 12th, 2006
I’ve been busy at work doing more of my
art-stitch creations lately. In fact, I’ve put away a lot of the other mediums I use to try to get as many of these done as possible. I want to make sure that when I think of an opportunity to sell them (or one surfaces) I’ve got a nice supply to start selling. I think I’m up to my 31’st tag so far. I figured I’ll sell them for around $7 Australian and see how I go. All profits from the sale of these will go to help out the
SIM HOPE for AIDS project that can be found
here.
Here’s a pic of the collection, minus a couple more I’ve done since then:
And some closeups:
July 9th, 2006
Recently I tried my very first internet swap from this website -
swap-bot. We had to gather a collection of interesting objects and wrap them inside a ball of wool. I did my best and sent it off to my given swapper in the United States and the other day I received my ball of wool. Well, it wasn’t so much a ball of wool anymore as much as a pile of unravelled wool and a pile of objects that were once wrapped inside it. Why? Customs. They’d unravelled the whole thing and checked everything in it!
Anyway, thank you to
Sherry for your amazing generosity and all the effort you went to in making this special. Here’s a photo of what it looked like when Sherry sent it:
And here’s what was inside:
July 7th, 2006
The theme for
IF this week is ‘Skyline’ so here’s my entry:
This is small, about A5 size and is entitled ‘Angel Flying High’ (original hey!). It’s watercolour on quite rough w/c paper and done quite some time ago. In fact, the first illustration I did of this was done in high school! One of these days I’ll do something with my artwork, any suggestions?
July 7th, 2006
This weeks PF theme is ‘Summer’ and considering that its winter here I’ve had to really think this time. Here’s my entry;
Me in the centre bottom row in the white t-shirt, my brother next to me wearing his veil (see below)
Michael in front of the giant score board.
Summer in Australia means a lot of different things to other places around the world. It means Christmas, it means the long summer holiday break for kids in Dec/Jan. It means cricket! If you don’t know what cricket is you can find out
here.
This is us at the cricket at the MCG a couple of summers ago. It’s the first and only time we’ve been there as we live in the west and it’s a long way to Melbourne from here. We all wore those silly reign deer horns to see if we could attract the TV cameras but I don’t think we were successful. We also made my brother wear a veil as it was two days before his wedding. This did call for more than one photo to show the true essence of an Aussie summer!
July 5th, 2006
I love this shot of Kez, she’s very inquisitive, this is from our ‘holiday’ in Dunsborough.
I have mentioned on here many times our connection with Niger in West Africa but I haven’t talked much about what we did there. I thought I would share a little of our journey towards going to Africa and its impact on our lives over the next few posts or so.
Looking at that list you have to ask yourself, ‘what teachers do they actually have and how can they run the school without them?’. The answer is that anyone who is there already teaching will end up wearing many hats, qualified or not and juggling many roles and generally ending up very worn out at the end of each term.
Stumble it!
