Second Report for Hazel’s Footprints From Sarah King
I have just returned home after a month training in Birmingham. In the next few days before I go off to Brazil I’ll be getting the last minute bits and bobs that I’ll need while I’m out there.
Training has been a very enjoyable and very educational experience, it’s given me e a chance to bond with my team and with all the other action teamers, who are going off around the world. Some people have said to me that a month seems like a very long time to be training to only be going out on mission for six months, and I must admit that I didn’t really know what they were going to be teaching us for a whole month before I went. However, now that I’ve been and experienced it I can completely see there reasoning. As part of the training they sent us off to training churches, where we were pretty much expected to run the church for the weekend and do five lessons, for year eight and 9’s, in a school on the Monday. This pushed me and my team out of our comfort zone, and forced us to work together. This is just one of the many example of how the training has help prepared me for living and working out in Brazil.
I have also found out a bit more about the work that we’ll actually be doing out there, working the PEPE programme mainly. Which is a pre-school programme for the kids that live in the slums of Sao Paulo. It was set up as a result of the slum kids dropping out of primary education because they were unable to keep up with the children who’s parent’s were in the position to have sent them to pre-school. Children dropping out of school at a very young age often lead to them turning to crime later in life because were unable to get jobs. The PEPE programme is trying to combat this domino affect from its route.
I hope that this year will be a life changing experience that I’ll never forget, and that I will be able to help the people in need, in any way that I can. The thing that I am probably most worried about is the language. Although I have been trying to learn Portuguese, I am no where near as good I would like, I hope I will be able to pick it up easily and I won’t have too many embarrassing stories to tell.
