One thing that the Brits are good at is planning; the obituaries are already written and the state funerals already planned for the notables who will die within the next ten years. We of the West live in an environment of thinking ahead to prevent greenhouse gases polluting the planet. In Aim we prepare contingency plans for all eventualities. All the eventualities of living in communities which do not plan for eventualities!

In their book 'Teaching Cross-Culturally', Lingenfelter and Lingenfelter deal with the false expectations that teachers from the West encounter when they teach in a two-thirds world school. "Crisis people plan for the future, needing to know where they are going and what steps will get them there [.] Non-crisis people tend to take things as they come, and when surprises arise, they simply adjust accordingly."

I'm a 'crisis' person; my cultural and temperamental bent is for being prepared. If anything has taxed my sanguinity while teaching at ISP, it's operating in this non-crisis world-view. Courses at ISP are taught according to the number of hours allotted rather than on a regular weekly or monthly schedule. On Friday afternoon I pro-actively ask, "What do you want me to teach next week? I've got 10 hours left of my course. When can I teach them?" And thus I reach the end of my prepared courses despite inverters that die making it impossible to follow the series depending on a video; despite the many wet days that keep students at home; despite visiting teachers needing to teach their courses in weekly blocks postponing 'regular' courses.

Were reaching the end of the academic year and now we learn that the teachers who promised to come and teach major courses for the 3rd years aren't coming. 60 hours of grammar, 90 hours of literature. 150 hours is three-weeks of 7-hour days at minimum! Such a schedule seems inhumane and unproductive. Surely it should have been possible to prevent this happening? Surely educated people have the skills to think ahead and avoid such calamities?

However, the best forethought in the world can't avoid the calamities that many of the students encounter when they come to Bunia to study at ISP: accident and sickness; robbery and theft; deception and disappointment over promised financial support. It's then that God comes into his own. He's pretty good at picking up the slack and putting things right, as many of the students testified at the weekend spiritual retreat. Neema encapsulated their stories by singing in her beautiful, rich voice: My God is able ... I know my God is able to carry me through.

Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine." (Social blunder, lack of planning, incompetent quantity surveyor or generous host?)

And Jesus was gracious enough to give the best wine not just supermarket plonk. John 2:1

Blessings,

Bridget