Harbick September 2024

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

Greetings from Nigeria!

Where has the time gone! It seems only yesterday that the rains began to fall here on the plateau. Now there is another change coming as the rains are subsiding and many of the crops are nearing harvest. Soon the rains will stop and all will become brown again.

At the end of August, we had graduation for the senior class at the Rafiki School. It was a great time of celebration with them and included the four Rafiki resident children who left us to join their extended families. They are awaiting their last national exam results in order to determine their university admission.

They will join those already in tertiary schools. Most reports from the different universities and schools are that they are doing well, with some need for improvement in following all the guidelines of the school.

Our maintenance team continues to make changes and repairs to existing buildings. They just modified the laundry room to reduce the laundry capacity and add storage for the kitchen.

The grounds crew have been very busy with all the grass and weeds that come with rainy season. Many of our staff have planted gardens with ground nuts, cabbage, soya beans, carrots, green beans, green peppers, yams, Irish potatoes, etc. to supply the kitchen. We also had a good harvest of mangos from our orchards planted the last few years. (Sorry to report that our apples only had very small apples, but they had some!)

The end of our school year came on September 13 with a closing recitation. The school invites families of the students to attend and we had standing room only at the end of the presentations. Of course, we had the kindergartners celebrate their promotion to the first grade. They processed in and were very clear, articulate, and funny during their presentation. I am always in awe of these forty young people sitting for hours and not causing a problem! There are two classes included in the group.

There is continued interest in our Rafiki Classical Christian Curriculum. We have more than doubled the number of schools who are using it. In fact, one of the church denominations just asked for curriculum for twenty of their existing schools!

Praises

• Abundance of rain during the rainy season.
• Great conclusion to the school year.
• God’s continued provision for the needs of the Village and our Rafiki employees during this continued time of economic instability.
• University of Mkar received word of the approval of classical Christian education as a subject from National Universities Commission.

Prayer Requests

• Pray for the meetings with the University of Mkar as they review RICE as the site for the teaching of the degree program in classical Classical education.
• The Old New Way Conference on classical Christian education is quickly approaching. Conference dates are October 28-29. Pray that we will reach and invite all those who should be coming.

Thank you for your prayers and support!

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