Leadership Training in our Goma Offices

9/09/2012 07:21:00 AM sendtheroths 0 Comments

This week marks the start of our 9-week leadership courses in the Goma offices. This program is designed to train members of the community to lead the way in peace, reconciliation and practical community development. We use Biblical truths as the basis for all leadership and principals of development coupled with community service and cooperatice leadership.

As our work continues in the DRC, we’ve seen the need to reproduce ourselves. We cannot and should not do the work ourselves. Congolese need to take the reigns in order for anything to be sustainable. 

 Our first lesson, which is meant to be more doctrine-based was about Jesus and foundation of salvation. Andrew brought them through a quick Old and New Testament survey, explaining the basis of Salvation.

The second lesson was about practical healing and reconciliation, which lead to many questions. Healing and reconciliation is still under-way in the Congo. We discussed the process of reconciliation and also forgiveness and justice from a practical, psychological standpoint. How to administer justice in a society that has a failed justice system; what is the natural process to forgiveness and healing; what are some common misunderstandings about reconciliation.

Our first session was a success but definitely wasn’t without difficulty.

Friends (and potential co-workers) who we expected to be there were not and others who we did not even know were there, one person even 30 minutes early!  More than 60 people arrived. and half of them arrived more than an hour late!

We are very serious about starting on time and because people were late, they missed out on the course as we have an 80% attendance requirement. Our room could only fit 30 people. We were prepared to offer a second class following the first one, but in the end no one stayed for the second class. So, within one day we filtered the class from 60 down to 30 participants.

Some people had some grumblings wondering why invited too many people and that we didn’t provide water or anything to snack on, but in the end these were minor complaints.

We think the sifting process has only begun. Down to 30 people, we still only expect that about 12 people will complete the course in it's entirety. We have designed it be very stringent, because of our need for committed, disciplined and hungry individuals. We aren't searching for large numbers here. We're searching for disciples.

They will be our foundation for future work.