September 2023 UPDATE
A message from VESA President Bruce Gregory
Bruce and Colleen Gregory traveled to Liberia to host a Teacher Institute at Betty Memorial Institute on behalf of VESA September 12-25, 2023. Travel difficulties made the experience more positive than it otherwise would have been, oddly enough.
An incredible amount was accomplished (experienced?) on this trip. Senior Capstone Project presentations, Bachelorette, Graduation, the Teacher Institute, Sewn Product Project introduced, review of the vocational annexes being added to the current high school building, and a review of the future site of the vocational/manufacturing center site.
This addition to the high school building will serve three areas: Tailoring, Cosmetology, and Agriculture. The existing white extension attached to the blue high school building houses the Solar Power Station VESA funded in 2021 ($45k). You can see a portion of the solar panel array on the high school roof.
This is local African construction. All blocks are made onsite. All lumber is milled. There is no Western Concrete or Home Depot! For those wondering about where all the water will go, a conduit directs water flow under the annex… ☺
Two local farmers agreed two years ago to help BMI build its Agriculture discipline. Being a fellow farmer, I thoroughly enjoyed touring Charles Dargor (right) and Victor Kiazolu farms. Since the suitcase with my clothes never showed up, Varney lent me some of his which included some of our farm’s tee shirts!
These men have wonderful spirits and are pure joy to work with. Between them, their families farm about 200 acres which includes rubber, cocoa, cassava, palm, rice, all kinds of vegetables, plantain, coconut, banana, etc. They have really increased the production of BMI’s farm which provides a portion of the food consumed on campus thereby increasing sustainability of this boarding school.
When you eat Liberian food, beware of the hot peppers added to spice the dish. You will know if you get one. Here is a raised bed of the peppers which Liberians raise in abundance.
The Senior Capstone Project resulted in two teams of four students each solving the local problem of how to convert discarded palm kernels into something of value. The result? Soap! One team produced laundry soap while the other body soap. The project requires both a business plan and marketing plan as part of their solution to a local problem. Students learned much in the process of producing this soap. Maybe Proctor and Gamble should be looking over their shoulder! ☺
The Capstone Project was awarded to Team Mutaja which means “We are moving forward”. Shown are both teams including, Kpasan-Kamala (We depend on God). Both teams produced wonderful products, but in the end, it is a competition and only one team wins.
Colleen improved the library by bringing a set of metal card files. Emanuel and Momo worked with her in moving the cards from the cardboard trays to metal filing cabinets and putting them in alphabetical order. She also did a pencil project with all the children which may seem simple, yet it included teaching the kids about books; specifically the authors and illustrators of them and the parts of a book including the front cover, the spine, and back cover and how to care for books. The book she chose to illustrate these points was, “When Pencil Met Eraser”, a perfect book to showcase what illustrators do in the communication process.
This is BMI’s palm plot. More palms will be added as areas are ‘brushed’ to make room for them. Palm oil will eventually be produced along with its production by-product, palm kernel. This we now know can be converted into a multitude of products, soap, skin creams, etc. After much haggling on my part, BMI has introduced coffee into its farm portfolio. Matt Wissink and I roasted some local coffee at BMI in January 2020. Liberica is the variety and it was very good. My chiding, “Please explain why I am drinking Nescafe instant coffee when I visit! You can grow coffee here!” appears to have finally paid off. It will take a while, but these freshly transplanted coffee bushes should be producing good coffee in the next three to four years.
I was given the honor of delivering the 2023 graduation commencement address. Graduates were encouraged to consider Seeking Wisdom, Building Character, and Living Sacrificially. We were told this is the cool season and it would seem so as Varney is wearing a winter coat. My shirt suggests otherwise.
Colleen’s primary project was taking the Tailoring teachers through what was called the Sewn-Product Project. The idea was to find some textile things that are marketable, then manufacture and sell them. Here, Korlu Borber uses one of the five treadle sewing machines VESA provided through gifts from donors to make a notebook cover. She will include this project and others like it in her tailoring course. Her skill with the treadle is quite amazing.
The BMI September 2023 Teacher Institute resulted in vocational teachers gaining more insight into writing objective assessment questions. These are questions or statements that have one and only one correct answer. For example, a quiz, which is an assessment, couldbe made up of statements that are true or false. Writing a statement that is 100% true 100% of the time may seem easy, but it is not. Teachers here argue, vehemently I might add, about how to reword a poorly written T/F statement to make it 100% true. The statement had to do with the air filter on this particular small engine. So much fun to sit back and watch them argue!
Vocational teachers place a corner post for the larger Vocational/Manufacturing Center building that they expect the Lord to provide for through VESA. Here they are praying for that provision. I might add we need to take a surveyor/civil engineer, and an expert in excavation to provide guidance for BMI here. They have one chance to get this building right. If you are in a position to help in this manner, please reach out to me. We are still in the design and planning stages for this part of the BMI Vocational Center project.
As you can see, it is not all work while at BMI. Building relationships is the most important thing that occurs. Now with COVID travel restrictions lifted, it is far easier to travel. The next Teacher Institute is being planned and will likely occur July/August 2024. The focus of that trip will be building learning exercises with complimentary assessments for each of the disciplines taught AND survey the Voc/Mfg Center site!
At the beginning and end of each day we open or close with a song and a prayer. I wish this newsletter could be made live, for you too would be blessed as we were part of this singing and praying.
If you have hung in there this long and have read this very long newsletter, then you might be interested in supporting the work of VESA on a routine basis. VESA uses special events to raise money for building construction and equipping those buildings.
However, VESA also provides monthly teacher salary support and monthly operating support which are currently $1500 and $150 respectively. These come out of our general fund and the general fund is hurting. Would you consider giving monthly some amount? This can be done at www.vesaschools.com or by mailing a check made out to VESA with ‘general fund’ in the memo line to: 11179 15 Mile Rd; Rodney, MI 49342. Going the check route saves all the online fees.
Please understand, this routine support will begin declining at a rate of 25%/year to zero after six BMI graduating classes of which there are now two, 2021 and 2023 graduating classes. To allow for the disruption COVID caused, we are not counting the 2022 graduating class. The number of graduating classes may be adjusted. BMI is our first school and we are learning with them how to go about this whole process. VESA is learning as much as BMI is!
School support is not perpetual. It will end. BMI will stand on its own at some future point. VESA will then move to support another school as funds are available.
A major goal of VESA is to equip BMI teachers who will become VESA Teacher Certified and who will then help develop other African teachers in their region as they themselves were.
We are not holding anything back. The teachers are getting what is equivalent to a BS Education degree. As we see it, VESA provides all the humanities credits they’ll ever need! ☺
VESA’s accounts for constructing and equipping are sufficient to cover CURRENT construction and equipment needs at BMI owing to The SAM (The Ski Across Michigan), Feb 2022, and VESA Sporting Clays 2023, July 2023.
However, once the larger Vocational/Manufacturing facility is scheduled for construction, significant funds will be required. This is anticipated to be dry season 2025 (think December-March). Hence, events like the upcoming VESA Sporting Clays 2024 scheduled for April 20, 2024 are critical to getting a head start on building this account up more.
Preparing for the April Sporting Clays event, we brought a few more pieces of African art. A couple larger, really cool pieces are on the way.
For King Jesus and His Kingdom,
Bruce and Colleen Gregory