Can you imagine your students, children, or grandchildren engaged in learning about God's good earth with children from a school half a world away? Two years ago, Grandville Christian School in Grandville, Michigan decided to reach out beyond their school's walls to children living in a different part of God's good earth.
Grandville students have heard and read news accounts about children in other parts of the world who want to go to school but have no school. They look at their school and ask, "Why should we have it so good? Our teachers teach us well and they love us. They help us to grow up strong, enabling us to be leaders in our homes, churches and communities."
Thousands and even millions of children can not even dream of having what Grandville students have. "Could God use underserved children to teach us about His world," they wondered?
Grandville Christian School/Rev. Joseph Murupus Academy
Grandville Christian School partners in a global learning community with the Rev. Joseph Murupus Academy in Kenya. This partnership is thoroughly Christian as both school communities recognize that the world belongs to God. God mandates that His people take care of it, and it is best done when Christians come together to assume this common task.
This "coming together" brings special recognition to God's work around the world. His mission engages in transforming a world broken by sin into a deeper expression of His kingdom. God's kingdom brings His love and grace to people.
As God leads in transforming His world to reflect Christ's worldwide kingdom, He prepares people with divergent backgrounds to carry on this work. God's kingdom also reflects His family, and families work together.
A great gift in such a partnership is that children grow to recognize that they have sisters and brothers in different places around the world, living out the common purpose to glorify God through obedient service. Children and teachers in Kapenguria, Kenya and Grandville Michigan learn best from each other to obediently take care of God's world. They learn from the gifts He created in each person.
It seemed the best way to answer this question would be to form a partnership in learning with a school located in a very different context. As they prayed about how to create a global partnership, they felt God nudge them toward forming a new learning community with the Rev. Joseph Murupus Academy in Kenya, East Africa. Would this work? What would it do to their learning goals and objectives?
One of the best ways to answer the question was to arrange a visit. Grandville students and staff began to pray that somehow they would receive the needed financial support. In January, the second visiting team, teachers and principal Steenstra traveled to Kenya to further develop the learning partnership concept. The second team came equally enthusiastic as the first team. After a short week, God affirmed in their hearts that they belonged to His worldwide family. Now Grandville Christian School and the Rev. Murupus Academy stand side by side, helping each other fulfill their task of taking care of God's world.
The Grandville Christian School community raised enough money to assist in bringing electricity to the Murupus campus. With electricity, the Academy teachers and students will join Grandville teachers and students in an interactive learning community where developing life-long learning skills will be the priority.
Where do you fit in? We need your prayers and financial support to encourage many more such partnerships. Please pray that children in North America and in other places around the world will catch God's vision to reclaim the world for Jesus. Jesus loves all the children of the world no matter what their cultural heritage.
Children and teachers in both communities are better able to learn core content because they experience how it works. Learning takes on a fuller dimension of skill development. Imagine how your children and the students from the Murupus Academy and GCS practice their communication, math, science, social studies skills as they work on projects together. Imagine how God must feel as He looks at His people in two divergent communities coming together in unity to take care of His world!
While engaging in a global learning community, some may feel our children are giving up something. They sense that their children are being sacrificed for an inferior education. Actually, a global partnership in learning calls for more rigor in education because it provides children a new, more dynamic way to think about learning. And it’s a more natural way to experience life. As students engage in learning partnerships, they experience a deeper internalization of learning, or Truth. This approach forces them to think, organize, analyze, engage content, problem solve, etc., in new ways. They learn from their own giftedness and from the gifts in their peers who live in a distant place.
Partners in Learning Across Cultures promotes the development of Christian global learning communities because it brings God’s people together in a common task. It increases the level of learning, knowing God and better understanding His world. It raises the level of preparedness to be fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. This is the heartbeat of our mission, and what Christian schools are all about.