marching on ...

The month of March is always a bit different for us here in the village, as the Monkolé churches hold their Dry Season Bible School. Three Bible teachers offer classes open to all Monkolé believers, held every morning. This year they are being held on the mission property, as we finished off work on a « paillotte » (open air structure) in January. The work was begun by the Longworth family in 2009, the roof went up last year, and this year we were able to put in a floor and stone benches.

We also had a special visit from an international speaker (!), Marc's father Jean-Louis. He came to Benin for a little under two weeks for a teaching tour around some rural churches who don't often get outside speakers. His first stop was two mornings teaching here to get our Bible School started. Here are Marc, Jean-Louis and some of the Monkolé Christians:

This month is also unexpectedly different for me. In October we were very pleased to welcome a young Swiss man who said he wanted to come and help a missionary family. He was to carry out his Swiss civil service by homeschooling Simon in the mornings – thus freeing up extra ministry time for Marc – and tutoring secondary school pupils in Kandi in his afternoons. We knew that of course this would mean that Marc would spend some time mentoring him and supervising his work. We hadn't realised just how difficult this might be.

Eventually we had to take him off Simon's homeschooling. Despite Marc's help and advice, he simply wasn't taking it seriously, and we felt it wasn't fair on Simon. He wasn't following the programme properly and was leaving silly mistakes uncorrected in Simon's work. This was of course a big disappointment to us, not so much for the extra time Marc lost, but because someone we trusted and were counting on didn't live up to our expectations.

While Marc is teaching Bible School this month, I have taken over Simon's schooling. Marc had told me how good the CNED course was, and I'm now discovering that for myself. It is a distance schooling course offered by the French government, and subsidized for French citizens living abroad. All the materials are supplied – tutor's manual, pupil's manual and all ressources – and it is all very well explained. Simon enjoys learning, despite a tendency to block if he doesn't get something right first time, and he is therefore a pleasure to teach most of the time!

Of course, the course is in French, and Simon is used to speaking English with me. But since it is only for a few weeks I figure it doesn't matter too much if we mix the languages. So all the official school stuff we do in French, but remarks like "Where's my ruler?" or "I think you know the answer to this one!" usually come out in English!