The Teacher Outreach

October was a busy month, evidenced by the lack of posts here. In October, there's usually a spill-over of tasks that need to be accomplished from September, but because there are only 30 days in that month, it just all can't be done.

Let me start from...I don't know. mid-September. Everything that I normally do to "adjust" to Kuwait in September was pushed to the end of the month because of the Teacher Outreach that we helped put together.

In a previous post, I mentioned that our Jabriya church service held an outreach for teachers new to Kuwait, hoping to help get them connected to The Lighthouse Church and other like-minded people in the country. Here's basically what our awesome team did (and what took several man-hours to organize with the help of lots of volunteers!), the fruit of which being that our service attendance has been consistently double in size over the past seven weeks.

 We...
- brainstormed ideas in the spring
- set a date to have a "welcome lunch" after the usual 11:30 church service
- ordered about 300 organza drawstring bags during the summer
- PRAYED and made some phone calls
- designed and had about 300, 3x4 invitations printed

- bought 24 boxes of gum, 9 cases of Kit-Kats, 2 giant bags of mentos, (and partridge in a pear tree...)
- stuffed the bags with the candy and the invitations
- passed out the candy bags to 6 or 7 schools' teacher accommodation buldings, one to each apt.
- organized van transportation for those who RSVPed, plus some extra
- made some phone calls...
- ordered sandwiches and different kinds of Arabic "fatayer" for 120 people
- bought ice, drinks, and plastic silverware, plates, napkins, etc.
- ordered Arabic sweets
- made some phone calls...
- purchased give-away prizes
- picked up ordered food on the morning of the lunch
- set up tables, chairs, food, and drinks
- prepared salads
- made some phone calls
- had an amazing service and lunch

Afterwards, I went into hiding with my coffee French press and a bottle of Ibuprofen for about a week, but it really all was amazing. We have met a lot of new people, made new friends, and helped people get connected to a church where they can grow and be stretched. To God be the glory.

Our friend and pastor, Mark Ingram, wrote a little article for the church's monthly magazine publication (page 7).  You can read it here: Contact Magazine, September 2012 (4/13 in the file- you need Adobe Reader to see it.)