New Year's Resolution 2014 and Literacy

So here it is January 27, 2014, and I'm getting started on one of my New Year's resolutions. Hurray! I need to little by little catch up on the gap between June 2011 and December 2013. Good thing I'm telling myself little by little. How will I do that? By going back and pouring over my emails primarily to my mom and family. And by combing thru my photos in I-photo. Blessedly, I have plenty of them. But for today, I'm in Ouagadougou while Bart has flown to Saly, (outside of Dakar), Senegal for Leadership Development training. On my list for Ouagadougou, besides grocery shopping, is ob/gyn annual visit, pap smear, mammogram, teeth cleaning, haircut, x-ray of March's broken arm to send to Jo-burg with Bart when he goes next week. I would also like to visit 2 offices to begin gathering literacy information--FONIO and ANTBA--why literacy? From a 2009 IRIN literacy article: "Of the 10 countries with the world’s lowest recorded adult – 15 and older – literacy rates, seven are in West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone." Storying and other orality methods are excellent tools to reach an illiterate population, but there's still a need to teach people how to read so that they may read the Bible in their own language, learn how to study it from their pastor, and then teach others. I would like for the literate to be equipped also to write discipleship material that our churches can use to encourage believers. One more fast literacy fact from the 2009 IRIN article on literacy: "Every year of education raises a person’s income potential by at least 10 percent, according to the UN-led Education for All coalition’s 2009 monitoring report." Another reason for literacy: The class below contains potential church pastors. Their route to our School of Ministry classes began some time ago--whether in a government or private school or in a literacy class as illustrated in the second picture of Pastor David of Langbina--one of our strong literacy supporters.