If you have the patience to read my thoughts, I'd love to tell you the backstory of this fabulous library. Where it all began...
Ten years ago, a missionary and teacher founded Teaching With Jamaica to support teacher training in Montego Bay. Over the years, some members of the team have stayed around, some have moved on, and all who have been a part are blessed. Ten years later, Teaching With Jamaica still hosts a 3-day teaching conference for Montego Bay preschool through sixth grade teachers. This year, we hosted 145 Jamaican teachers.
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| Closing Ceremonies at the 2016 Conference |
Two years ago, Teaching With Jamaica was allowed to create a school library in Farm Primary and Junior High. Mr. Victor Newsome, the principal, had been a teacher at the conference for a few years before being promoted to principal and--since reading is fundamental to education--sought help in building a school library.
At a celebration last week, Mr. Newsome shared his success. In the first year of Farm's library, the school literacy rate grew from approximately 40% to 60%. In the second year, they advanced from 60% to 80%. School libraries change lives.
Last summer, the Teaching With Jamaica team went on school tours after the conference ended as they do each year. They toured Catherine Hall Infant, Primary, and Special Education School. Mrs. Mitchell, the administrative assistant, was in her first few week of a new job, She led the tour and even pointed out one cluttered and locked room. "This is supposed to be our library," she said, "But we ran out of funding and haven't been able to complete it." Principal Dudley Jennings had been diligent in improving his school of 1300 students by adding a computer lab downstairs and a library space upstairs. The computer lab had been equipped and was up and running. But the library was yet unfinished.
"This is our library," Patti Gilbert, Teaching With Jamaica President, whispered to her team.
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| The view into the Catherine Hall Library space |
But ultimately it is not the decision of Teaching With Jamaica to choose a facility. The Jamaican Ministry of Education must approve requests and decide which school we are able to assist. The Ministry said a library could be built, but did not share which campus they would allow.
The leaders of Teaching With Jamaica began collecting new and donated books in June of 2015, knowing that they would build a library, but not knowing which library.
That same June, I went to an event honoring Allen High School Seniors of which one was my niece Haley Armentrout. Haley has always wanted to be a teacher. Her gifts and abilities have shown already that she will be a master teacher like her mother and grandmother before her! One of the teacher mentors that spoke at the event was Patti Gilbert. She shared about Teaching With Jamaica and the books they were already collecting to build a library.
I recall hearing about that mission and thinking, "I could do that." Already I was intrigued. But it wasn't until September that Terri Williams, a teacher friend at my school in Wylie, asked me to think about joining the library team with Teaching With Jamaica. By that time I had forgotten about Haley's event and the news I had heard there. All I knew was that Terri's idea sounded so familiar, and I already heard the Lord whisper, "Go."
Terri asked me to pray about joining this summer's group. I told her I'd pray, but I already knew I'd say yes. It took me a week before it dawned on me where I had heard about Teaching With Jamaica before (in Sunday School when Haley leaned over and said, "You heard it from me!").
I love that the Lord planted that seed in advance and prepared me before the invitation.
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| Terri Williams and I at the Ten Year Teaching With Jamaica Celebration |
So now we come to the work....
In October, I began assisting the team on processing the donated books. Library processing means affixing spine labels, pockets, and check-out cards to the books for circulation. It means sorting the books into categories of picture books, chapter books, and non-fiction Dewey classifications. It means creating a catalog or list of each book that the library will house. It took us seven months to finish the work on 6000-plus books.
Just after Christmas, Patti got word that The Ministry of Education had decided on a school for the library: Catherine Hall!
Now we prepared KNOWING who would benefit and praying for those specific children as we worked. The only thing we knew about the space was that one peek into the tiny cluttered space. We planned decorations and organizations not really knowing what the space would actually look like as a library.
By May, we had to ship all of our materials. A huge number of boxes take a long time to arrive and even longer to pass through Customs. Another concern we had at the time was the fact that we had heard there were no shelves in the Catherine Hall Library. We prayed for shelves to be built. We prayed for the materials to arrive on time.
Now, I have not mentioned yet that Patti had given us a theme to consider as we prepared for our trip---the teaching team and library team alike. We were to have "Crazy Faith," faith that defied logic but rested solely on God.
Crazy Faith and our gracious Jesus brought us many miracles.
In June, with a departure date of July 16 looming, there were still no shelves and our boxes had not arrived in Jamaica. But at our June meeting, one of our teachers, Britni Haskin, invited a parent to come speak with us. Camille Simpson was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, and came to talk to us about Jamaican people and culture. She overhead the mention that there were no shelves.
"You must have shelves," she told Patti. Camille's father still lives in Kingston and works in construction. She contacted him and he got lumber at 50% off and arranged for a carpenter to go to Montego Bay and build the shelves in Catherine Hall.
On July 15th, when even Mr. Jennings was beginning to wonder if this library would really be built, a truck arrived with lumber. Another truck arrived with our thirty-plus book boxes from Customs. On July 16th, our team flew in from Dallas.
On the same day we flew in, the shelves were constructed. On July 17th, while we unpacked at the mission housing, sorted conference material supplies, and prepared for the teaching conference that the teaching team would lead, the shelves were stained and varnished. And on Monday morning, July 18th, we arrived to find a room larger than we expected, shelves dry and new and more perfect than we had hoped, and a school bustling with summer school activity and children asking us when they could check out the books we brought.
Crazy Faith. A God that does the impossible.
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| Before. Read the next post for the story of our amazing week. |
**Hey, team, if I have told any part of this story wrong, please email me or comment. I want to tell it all exactly as God unfolded it. Thank you!!
