Melissa and I are excited to tell you about a new partnership for Cowman School with an organization that specializes in training, supporting, and sending teachers to mission schools overseas: TeachBeyond.
With the phenomenal growth of the school over the last few years, Cowman has struggled to keep up on at least two crucial fronts - construction and staff.
On the construction front, we have been blessed with a lot of hard work being done by crews over the past few years, headed up by our director, Brett Bundy. For example, FIVE new classrooms were completed last summer and those were immediately filled and utilized. Over this present summer, we are blessed to have Carl Poynter and Nathan Wiechmann on the site, pushing the project forward while working with local crews and visiting teams. One additional classroom, a conference room and a nurse's office will be completed and operational by mid August, God willing. These will also be filled immediately and construction on further classrooms on the second floor will continue into the fall.
So we've managed, by God's provision of leadership, hands, and funds, to keep JUST ahead of the curve on facility needs. But staffing has been an ongoing concern for several years now and we have been operating short-handed too often. Fortunately, one of our board members put Melissa onto the trail of TeachBeyond last fall and the more Melissa looked into the organization, the more she found to like. She even went to visit a TeachBeyond partner school in the Dominican Republic to get firsthand impressions.
When Melissa contacted TeachBeyond directly, they said they had been praying for an open door in Haiti. So this spring, the school board formally signed a memorandum to partner with them.
This partnership is already bearing fruit: two new teachers will be joining Cowman through TeachBeyond this fall. I had the chance to visit with them last week in Chicago when I dropped in on TeachBeyond's orientation, held on the campus of Wheaton College. My goal was to get to know both of them a bit and answer their questions while also getting to know the leadership of TeachBeyond and have THEM answer MY questions.
By the time I left Chicago, I was unreservedly excited about both the organization and our new candidates.
Zenobia, on the left, will be teaching 5th grade for us while Kristen, on the right, will be teaching junior high and high school math.
We are so very thankful for these two young ladies who are willing to step out in faith and join Cowman's work in Haiti. Please pray for their funding over the next few weeks. Like us, they have to raise support to get themselves onto the mission field. It can be a daunting and faith-stretching task!
Furthermore, please pray that the Lord would also supply teachers to fill a couple of key gaps remaining at Cowman for this fall: we still need a 2nd Grade teacher and a junior high/high school science teacher. We have been praying up a storm and putting out feelers in every direction as we wait to see what God has in store. Meanwhile, we have also heard that our 6th grade position is a bit 'up in the air' now as well, and that is further fuel for prayer!
Even as our current needs are filled, we will undoubtedly continue to need teachers at all sorts of levels and subjects in the coming years and TeachBeyond will maintain our job posts on their website, a place where searching candidates are likely to find through Google.
We look forward to seeing what fruit God will provide in the coming years through this new partnership!
If you are interested in learning more about TeachBeyond yourself, click on the link below to visit their website:
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