JOEL Volunteer Shares Testimony with Fellow Educators
Release No: 09-32
By Noel Hwande
May 22— PANAMA CITY, Panama: The following letter was recently sent to the Lutheran Hour ministry center in Panama. It was the personal testimony that a Project JOEL volunteer, 39-year-old Juan Herrera, recently shared with a group of fellow educators from a number of schools around Panama.
"I am a sixth grade teacher at the school where I work, and in 2008 we began a task that has produced excellent results. Working through Project JOEL we began reading the New Testament as a program whose goal was that the students read the complete New Testament in one academic year.
For ten years I've been a JOEL volunteer, and have always dealt with students who come from areas of high social risk. At first, I was not confident about the idea of the Word of God and Christian values being taught to a group of students who had grown up without the basic knowledge of the gifts of God. Many of these children grew up without fathers. Some lived with their grandparents and, almost all of them didn't attend Church. To me, it seemed a waste of time.
With time I have come to understand that when the word of God changes me and guides me, then it may serve to guide others through my life. Not only did I read the booklets distributed by LHM to students, I also began to read them at home to try to understand them.
Today, my whole family is involved in serving God and now I am even a teacher in my Church too. I have learned to give priority to spiritual things - that did not used to be important to me at all. Jesus is a living reality in my life and now I preach with power.
At my school, Arabic of Egypt Primary School, we have the freedom to teach Christian lessons. Booklets, videos, and the training that I received through JOEL have all played a decisive role. But above all, it is the blessed and sacred Word of God which has begun to affect educators, students and parents. Last year the entire school celebrated Bible Week and in the future we will arrange a Biblical Cultural program.
Twelve of my sixth grade students have begun to attend a church with some of their parents. This is God's work! Please pray for me as I go forth."
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