SKILD Receives Skilled Visitors

Because of the hard work of many faithful Christians here in Lebanon, we have had the opportunity to have many doors open to us that would be otherwise firmly shut. Today we spent the entire day in a single school in Lebanon. It has 2,000 students and a mosque complete with minaret in the middle of the school campus. I heard the teaching of the Koran going on in classrooms and the call to prayer up close and personal.

Although other teams tried to get the contract to provide special education services to their school, SKILD (Special Kids with Individual Learning Differences) that I am with was chosen for the job because of the relationships that they have built with this school. They said that they trusted them the most.

We had an amazing meeting with the principal for several hours and even arranged to meet her in Alpharetta in July when she attends an education conference. We then did training with the newly hired special educators and then addressed all the teachers. They even arranged to let school out 2 hours early so that teachers could attend. Our goal was to love them so much that they would be open to what we had to teach them about valuing all children and finding ways to teach even the most difficult of students.

They were so responsive to our presentation that they literally followed us to the door trying to get our email so they could ask us more questions about their difficult students. Nothing short of God's grace that we were able to connect so strongly with our new partners in Special Education.

At the end of the day we were taken to the main newspaper office of Lebanon where we were interviewed for an extensive article supporting the adoption of special education in Lebanon. What a thrill to be part of the story.

Tomorrow we speak from 8am until 8pm at three different schools. The only time we are not speaking is when we are traveling to a new school. We will probably fall asleep in the car on the way back. Tomorrow we speak to parents and their school, and two different evangelical schools.

A very special dinner has been planned Thursday for all the top decision makers in education in Lebanon. It is a very fancy 3 hour dinner. Gayle and I are the guest speakers and have been asked to cast a vision for the future of Lebanon's education. The media has been invited along with the staff of the ministry of education and other dignitaries and school principals. We feel totally inadequate to be in this role, but totally surrendered to the Lord if he continues to give us the opportunity to do this.

- Mary Jane Trotti

Date: 6/10/2012 7:00:24 PM

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