Entering Year 3 of the Pandemic

It has been an interesting time to be in - well I was going to say ministry, but I’m sure that sentiment is true for literally any career in the world. Whoever it was was right when they quipped that we should “take a moment to appreciate that everyone asked the question ‘where do you see yourself in five years?’ five years ago gave a wrong answer”!
 
We have had to learn to adapt to doing what ministry we can in the conditions in which we find ourselves - in some cases that has meant putting some on hold, in others that has meant adapting how they are run to account for new rules, and for others it has meant doing something completely different. We’ve also found that, perhaps to balance the weeks with little to do early on in the pandemic, there can be bursts of time where there is a lot to do.
 
In a way, we’re in one of those bursts - although that’s a bit more typical for this time of year. It is the time of year when our scholarship students are finding out what school supplies they will need, and so, we find ourselves in need of purchasing a great many things, organising them, and delivering them. This includes not only school supplies like workbooks, pens, pencils, and so on (and also some specialist items depending on a given student's course), but also new backpacks, new shoes, and new uniforms and sports kits.

At this time, however, the tutoring has not fully started back up yet, so it’s not been an overwhelming degree of busyness. For the most part, because schools overran last year (for the second year running - no need to explain to you why) they are starting late again this year. However, for the young people studying in schools that run at the weekend their classes have already started - for those kids we will be starting our tutoring times tomorrow. The rest of the schools start in the final week of February, so our first full week of tutoring will be in the first week of March.
 
Please do be praying for us to be able to effectively equip these young people for their schooling this year, and for the young people to be ready & eager to dive right into learning as soon as they are able.