EMed Nazarene schools continue reaching children

Amman, Jordan

Thursday, November 5, 2009

When it opened in the 1950s, Amman Nazarene School (ANS) started small, offering classes for younger students and slowly adding grades as it became financially viable. Today, students from K-10 study in the school in Jordan's capital, with the hope that someday the education will extend through grade 12. But for older students now occupying classrooms originally intended for much younger ones, the cartoon murals covering the walls have long felt out of place.
 
A Work & Witness (W&W) team from Chicago helped remedy this in April. While the team installed 14 heating units, four ceilings, and built a safety rail to protect children from neighborhood traffic, they also polished hallways and repainted the classrooms with new, more mature colors and curtains. Though it was the school's Easter break, 20 students visited the campus each day to help paint and move sand piles, inspiring them to make a pledge: in 15 years, they want to return as a group to do their own work project.

Around the same time, 35 of Eurasia's regional leaders helped spruce up Jordan's neighboring Zarqa Nazarene School. More than 60 years old, the school had never welcomed a W&W team before, and the repairs and freshly-painted walls have made a lasting impact on the staff and students. "They were inspired to see people having so much fun and getting a lot of satisfaction out of spending their time serving the school and the community, the students, and the Lord," said Rod Green, who coordinates Nazarene Compassionate Ministries (NCM) for the Middle East.
 
The two teams represent the newest wave of support for a ministry that started more than half a century ago and has become one of the most diverse outreaches on the Eastern Mediterranean Field. Nazarene schools, also located in Beirut, Lebanon, and Damascus, Syria, all draw children from a wide range of ethnic and religious backgrounds into a solid education that includes exposure to the Bible and emphasizes loving one another. They minister to middle-class, underprivileged, and refugee families. All benefit from the support of the global church through NCM, who provides basic supplies and enables Nazarene Child Sponsorship (NCS) to further the opportunities for students. And even in the midst of financial challenges, the communities continue to see Christlike character developing in those whose lives they touch.
 
The school in Beirut has been rebuilt in a number of places following wars, and despite the current economic struggles of the city, each student still brings one dollar a month as an "offering of love" to help those more needy than themselves. The funds help cover tuition for families unable to afford it, and helped 15 families this year.

Last Christmas, the students in Beirut made gift boxes full of small items and attended a party for 50 former street children who live together in a group home run by a local evangelical non-profit organization. This year, the students are also working toward sponsoring their own child somewhere else in the world, choosing another area that NCS supports. "A place once caught in the middle of hate and violence is a place teaching children the power of love," Green said.

When the school day ends in Damascus, the ministry is just beginning. The school continues to welcome Iraqi students to the sanctuary in the afternoons - even though they can't attend traditional classes, they continue to come for a few hours each day for remedial instruction, spiritual encouragement, and a snack. Sudanese students arrive later for more activities, and four evenings a week, volunteer doctors provide care and referrals to 240 patients a month through a free clinic located on campus. "It is natural for patients to leave the clinic and join prayer meetings already in progress, to seek spiritual healing to go along with the physical care and medicines they have just received for free," said Green. "It's a church that rarely closes or rests."

The presence of the schools has become a source of hope in the midst of what is, for many, uncertainty. "For many parents, the schools are providing an intangible service," said Green, "an invisible quality they can't quite discern, but know they want for their children."
-- Eurasia Region Communications

 

< back to Eurasia

next article >