Igmin Kibe Fun

Here are some pictures of everyday happens at Igmin Kibe that are fun to observe and be a part of.

This is Hannatu and Theresa. It is so fun to watch friendships of the students grow. I love the connections that these students have with each other.

Ayuba's class learned how to throw a frisbee last week. It was funny to watch them try it at first because it was a hard skill to learn, but they eventually got the hang of it and had a blast!

I love the fact that God has provided for us to give the students a hot meal each day. I am so grateful to the support from the sponsors that allows this to be a reality. The children LOVE this part of coming to Igmin Kibe each day. I am also grateful that we had a large amount of very high quality children's vitamins donated. We are able to provide these vitamins with snack each day.

My favorite things to observe at Igmin Kibe is the teachers stepping up and going the extra mile for the students. This is Ayuba taking time in between his classes to help Esther with her homework. We are blessed with incredible teachers with great hearts!

Farming Update

I (Will) realize the title “Farming Update” sounds about exciting as watching paint dry, however, it is exciting when you start to see the fruit of your (in this case, their) labor.

The “Dry Season Farming” project with the women in Kisayhip ‘A’ continues to go very well. Tomatoes are growing well and they will be harvesting the first batch soon.

Kisayhip Youth Developments farming is also starting to pick up. The potatoes they planted have started to come up (at least the plant part that grows out of the ground). Tomorrow they will be adding some fertilizer and doing some general upkeep around the farm. They will plan to be harvesting sometime in August.

Signs that Make Me Smile

Here are some signs in Jos that make me giggle a little bit every time I see them. The signs in this country are priceless and usually I am not quick enough to get a picture of them, but here are three that were worth slowing down to capture.

 This sign is right before some speed "bumbs". Hehe. I laugh to myself every time we pass it.

 This sign says, "Infant Jesus Academy". It always reminds me of a line from a popular movie (that I will not promote on this blog.. haha). I always wonder why they focus on the infant Jesus, it seems like you would want the students at a school to know more about the rest of Jesus' life too. Hehe :).

I just recently noticed this sign. Apparently I am out of the loop because this must be the place to be.

That is all for tonight. I thought you might enjoy some humor from around town. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Mothers!

We had a meeting for the mothers of the students at the Ed Center yesterday. We try to get the mothers together on a regular basis to keep them updated with what is going on at the Education Center. We were way overdue for a meeting, so we were excited to get them together again. Our main purpose of the meeting was to tell the mothers the good news about our hospital visits. We got the results from our trips to the hospital (remember that post a couple of months ago?) and ALL of the students that were tested were negative for all of the major diseases that are common here (HIV, Typhoid, etc). We were thrilled.. and so were the mothers! It was such a relief for them to get the news that their children were healthy!

I have found the dynamic between parent contact really interested since teaching here. The mothers work really hard to provide for their children and most of them have more children than the ones that are at the Education Center. So, it does not leave for much time to keep up with things like their children's education. We have never had a mother come and ask how their child was preforming. We have never had any of them inquire about their child's behavior or academics at all. This is truly because they have so many other things to keep up with on a regular basis. When we do get the mothers together, however, they are always thrilled to hear more about what their children are doing at Igmin Kibe.

I was a little bit disappointed because only 4 out of the 10 mothers came to the meeting yesterday. We gave notice and even provided food, but it is the middle of farming season and a lot of them own shops that are hard to take time away from. Leaving to come to a meeting is time not making much needed money. I heard from most of the students about why their mothers did not come last night and one of them even came today to apologize and ask what she missed. My favorite story was that one student told me yesterday that his mother was sick and would not be able to come to the meeting. Today he came up to me and said, "Auntie Theresa! My mom born a baby last night!". Hehe... so "being sick" was "being in labor" gotta love the logic of children :). I think she had a good excuse for not being at the meeting :)!

We are so grateful for all of the mothers of our students. They do an incredible job serving and providing for their families. It is always fun to get a chance to see the mothers. My favorite moment of yesterday was watching one of the mothers listen to her son read. She came very early for the meeting and Jeremiah was not yet in class, so he had extra time. He took out his book and starting reading to his mother (one of the few mothers who knows how to read). She came up to me later and said, "Jeremiah could not read at all before and now he can read! Thank you!!". It was so neat! I love that she has been able to see the progress of his reading skills. Praise the Lord for his ability to read!

Passing the Baton

A major part of community development is one day passing on the work to the community itself. This is one area we’ve been working with Kisayhip Youth Development (KYD) to establish the things they can take off our plate and put on theirs. Daniel and I (Will) have worked over the past couple months to help them see what they can do that costs no or very little money. They took this idea and ran with it!

Last week KYD hosted their first outreach for the widows in the Kisayhip Village! They scheduled the event, raised all the money, notified the widows and purchased the supplies they needed all with no help from Back2Back. On the day of the event over 20 widows arrived to watch a movie and be cared for by the youth.

Half way through the movie the youth passed out soap, one for bathing and one for washing clothes, to each widow. In side each bag the youth had written notes to the widows with verses and words of encouragement. The widows were very excited!

I spoke briefly letting the widows know that from now on Back2Back won’t be “calling” them for any outreach. It is now in the hands of KYD. The widows started clapping! As eager as the youth are to help their community it seemed as if the widows were equally excited about having help from within, help that lives next door, help that understands their struggle.

Please continue to pray for KYD as they grow and branch out in new ways seeking to serve and develop their community.

Spotlight on Stephen

 In April, we hired Stephen Igba as our "Dean of Education" for B2B Nigeria. Nigerians like to use big titles, like "Dean", we would maybe use the term, "administrator" for what his job entails. Either way, we are very happy to have him as a part of our team! Stephen is Esther's husband. It is funny because he is the one who recommended that we hire Esther last year, and now he is working for us too! We are so happy to have him in this position and he is filling a lot of roles already! Stephen is a certified secondary teacher.  He is currently working with our two youth who are being sponsored to go to secondary school. He tutors them two days a week. He is also learning the ins and outs of Igmin Kibe so that he can jump in and substitute if need-be (he has already done this twice and was great at it!). He is also working on starting adult literacy classes for the adults in the village. He will start these classes at the end of this month. We are so grateful that the Lord provided for us to be able to hire Stephen and we are excited about all of the work he is doing!

DISC Profiles

Every B2B village staff member recently took a DISC Profile Personality Test. For those of you who are not familiar with the DISC Profiles, it is a very good personality test that divides personalities into 4 categories. After you take a series of “scenario” questions, the program tells you which personality traits you have the most of, and which you have the least of.

The “D” represents “Director”. These are the people who are decisive, determined and direct. They are usually the heads of organizations or companies because they like control and are good leaders.

The “I” represents “Promoter”.  These people are fun. They love people and are good motivators and team-players. They sometimes exaggerate (I am an “I” and I will tell you that I NEVER EVER exaggerate, so I don’t think this is true ;)).

The “S” represents “Supervisor”. Supervisors love peace. They are high on family and will do anything for those they are loyal to. They are steady and sometimes avoid conflict in order to keep peace.

The “C” represents “Sheriff”. The sheriff is all about fairness. They can be perfectionists and like quality control. They do their homework, so they love to be right on issues (because they have done all of the research to prove that what they just said is, in fact, true).

After having 6 Nigerian staff members take this test, we were shocked to see that on paper, they all had very similar personalities. Now, these are people that we work very closely with and know very well. As a staff, we would not have guessed that their personalities would be almost identical. All of them ranked very high in “S” and “C”. It has made me think about how much influence a culture can have on personality. It is almost as if a “D” personality would not do well here because things change so often, that you cannot be certain about much in the culture. I think that most Nigerians are naturally “I’s” because of the nature of family and village living, but maybe the questions on the test were not directed to that type of life-style. In America, everyone is very different because our culture allows for that. You can decide what you what to be like, what you want to do, who you want to associate with, etc. In Nigeria, so much of life is determined for you by what is most convenient and what you were born into. I would love to have a couple years to research this concept of “Personality and Culture”, but since that probably will not become a reality, I will settle on my small findings for now.

Will led a training on the results of the test last Friday and the staff enjoyed it a lot. It was fun to see their excitement when a line from their results was very accurate of how they view themselves.  It is so helpful to have tests like this done in order to know how to best serve the people you are working with. The test gave tips on what to do for this person to help them perform to their best potential and what not to do. We were really grateful for this opportunity for everyone to get to know themselves better and how to treat each other better.