People seem to have appreciated my recent updates from around the Newfrontiers spheres with whom I have contact. I have recently heard from Guinea and think that, following ebola and my appeal for sponsorship for school children, this would be of interest. Thank you to all who helped with the ebola appeal and who have offered to sponsor a child. We do still need more sponsors – £10/month. Can you help? If so click here to request details.
Newsletter from Nicolas Thebault
Last week I was in a taxi driven by a 77 year old chauffeur! This person explained to me as we were returning home that the new drivers do not know how to drive and the new police officers do not know the driving code because everyone buys their driving license without taking the test. The funniest thing was that at that moment he was on the wrong side of a ramp on the motorway crying and hooting the horn so that everyone would let him pass!
It is a little bit the same thing with the Ebola crisis! The weekend when a doctor we know told us that there are no more cases of Ebola in Guinea, the authorities closed the frontiers with Sierra Leone and announced a state of sanitation emergency for 45 days. It is always difficult for us to understand what is happening even after living here for 12 years.
Since our last newsletter in November and up to the reopening of the schools on 19th January (instead of the 3rd October) we have been living through some difficult months; we could not pay the salary of our 30 teachers. But God is faithful! Someone who recognised this decided on their own back to do some different actions in their village in England to send us a sum of money as a Christmas present, to all our teachers who had not been paid since the end of October. They received two thirds of one month’s salary. They are still talking about it!
The Jubilee School has been able to do the work asked for by the authorities who then recommended us to UNICEF because of the serious way in which we applied these measures of prevention against the spread of Ebola.
We have been able to reopen our doors on the 19th January and we have 329 pupils registered at Conakry, 70 at Koukoudé. Without your help and all your prayers this would never have been possible.
On the behalf of everyone here, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.
Rom 5:6 When we were still powerless, Christ died for us.
Departure for the BECE (equivalent to the ‘O’levels)
Because of Ebola, the exams were postponed since last July. On Monday 23rd March, we learnt that the exam would finally take place on Monday 30th March in Sierra Leone. As Authorities had decreed a curfew on everyone from Friday 27th to Sunday 29th there was the necessity to organise in three days the voyage for the 30 pupils. 20 got on the 9 seater bus with Maina, the Principal. The other 10 followed the next Monday since their tests were only starting on Thursday2nd April. Then, everything got really complicated when Guinea then decided to close its frontier with Sierra Leone without any warning on the Monday morning!
Finally after lots of adventures, and after many prayers and the intervention of someone in the embassy of Sierra Leone, they succeeded in crossing the border on the Tuesday evening with 10 pupils who could take their exam on time. We hoped they would be able to return to Conakry one day (they actually did without any trouble!!).
Despite all the difficulties, Maina above with her two children (extremes of the left photo) and Auntie (far right) maintain the vision of the school:
An education for all in an atmosphere of love and respect
Light of the Nations Church
Although I had expressed to God my despair at all the situations we have had to face since the beginning of January, God really spoke to me through Numbers11: 11 – 17. Without going into details, we received the promise that everyone would have enough to eat, if we the elders delegate our work even more and train a new generation. Since we put this into practice our situation, particularly financial, has completely changed in three months. Because of the initiatives of John Hammond, Sam Amara, Martyn Dunsford, Nigel Ring, David Nunn, the churches of Paris and Lyon, and many others, we see once again that God is providing for all our needs. We have a very large sum of money to pay for the lease of the land for the next 12 years, the land on which we must build before June 2017.
BREAKING NEWS STOP – BREAKING NEWS STOP – BREAKING NEWS
Former student killed
The runner (in colour) on the photo, one of our former Jubilee pupils, was shot & killed on the 13th April whilst he was protecting a shop which was being looted after demonstrations regarding the presidential elections scheduled for the the middle of October. He had left the school last year.
The demonstrations started again recently with deaths, injuries and again more disorder in the country. The families have not been sending their children to the Jubilee School for these last two weeks following all these problems. Pray for the protection of all the members of the church and for Jubilee.