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While visiting the BHW partnerships in Egypt we spent a couple of hours with the two pastors (G and B) who are the main leaders of the movement on the 5th of November. They presented reports to us about the progress in the past year. They presented a review of activities and financial details of income and spending. It was very well presented and detailed.
Pastor B has become the leader of the movement for the next two years which means that things will get done. The man before him was very disorganized, B is amazing.
With the funds received in the previous year, they have refurbished eight preschools and established two more.
The number of children in the preschools has increased and those that have been attending are noticing an increase in interest in education from the families.
There are more than 550 children involved in the preschools.
More than 45 people have some level of employment and income from these programmes.
It was not possible within the timeframe we had and the difficulty of visiting the preschools to get any stories. All of them are in Upper Egypt in rural towns and villages.
The families are rapt to have improved facilities for their children. The children love going to school.
The pastors are very encouraged. They are noticing that the families are now much more interested in attending church as they feel the churches are dealing with their real needs, not just preaching at them.
The children from these preschools become the best students when they go to school after graduating from the preschools. They have numeracy and literacy skills which others do not.
They want to bring all 30+ preschools up to scratch and to refurbish them all. We had a long discussion with them about this and that we did not have the capacity to fund them all within short time frames. While they understood this, they are keen to do it as quickly as possible.
We also discussed with them that they had to look at finding a way to effectively do repairs and maintenance. We said we didn’t want to come back in some years and find them all run down and defunct. They promised this would happen and that they would visit regularly and monitor. We stressed that they would have to find funds for repairs and maintenance somehow.
There are still more than 30 churches that want assistance with existing preschools or who want to establish new ones.
The cost of living and inflation are making it very difficult for families to pay the very small monthly charges of about US$2.
1) They have been able to spend the funds wisely and for US$1,000 each, develop ten programmes
2) That so many children are involved in the programmes
3) That the children are hearing the Word of God and getting exposure to the Bible stories
4) That many of the Christian young people in these rural towns and villages are getting a small income
These are an important part of the ongoing strategy of the leaders to help their churches develop. While G and B are leading the movement, I can see this continuing to be a useful tool.
They are doing a good job of these and spending the funds well. It is hitting very poor people and giving their children a good start to education.