Stories from the provincial trainers' meeting:  

 In spite of positive changes happening in the communities, and the progress that the trainers see, they often encounter great jealousy and even physical attacks .  Martin shared the story of how his community has progressed, in spite of some confusion over expectations when an international NGO came in to do a water project prior to the development of community ownership.  Then someone died, and Martin's father was accused of killing the person by sorcery-- the usual fall-back 'cause of death'.  When a group came to kill the father, Martin stood up to them calmly, without any threats of retaliation, and they shot at him short range with a bow and arrow.  To everyone's amazement, the arrow deflected to one of the accomplices and hit him instead!  Martin encouraged the others in the group to trust in the Lord as our source of protection, not in people or any kind of force.  

Martin's story reinforced the Bible study Koyu, the provincial CHE coordinator, had just lead on the story of King Uzziah-- his rise to fame and the pride that ruined him, and the "80 courageous priests" that stood up to him!  

 Sharon facilitated a session on asset based community development (ABCD), using the "Stone Soup" story (hear it in the next blog entry!) and an assessment of our individual skills and strengths.  This is a hands on description of how the basis of community strength is our own gifts, then the development of common interest groups and associations that add to this base, which allow us to properly utilize the institutions that are set in place to develop our society.  They saw clearly how expectations that the institutions will come in to develop their communities will produce powerless dependency, rather than community strength.