Over the last year, a partnership has been forming between The Grove Community Church, World Vision, and Favor of God ministries. The Grove Community Church has hosted Favor’s American co-founder Carole Veasey as a speaker and supports Favor’s ministries financially on an ongoing basis. Favor of God and World Vision have been in contact with each other over the last three years as World Vision has engaged in its three-year study in the Gulu and Aber regions. The Grove hosted World Vision’s “Step into Africa” exhibit in Fall of 2009 and, in addition to raising monthly commitments to sponsor 600 children in Gulu, initiated talks about partnering with World Vision in the Gulu area to support the implementation of the action plan that would emerge from the three-year Gulu ADP study.
This is where we come in. In the fall of 2009, Darlene and I began volunteering with Favor of God ministries (Darlene blogs, I assist with Favor’s social media presence) and we attended the Step into Africa event. We spoke with Rob Vis, U.S. administrator for Favor, about visiting northern Uganda and providing teacher training to the staff at Favor’s primary school in Gulu (both Darlene and I are former teachers, and I have my own business providing teacher professional development in Southern California). As the relationships grew, it was announced that the Grove would send teams to Gulu and Aber to support the ADP plan. Darlene and I signed up on for the team that would be dealing with education and teachers, in order to be a part of this personal journey of growth and to a part of the developing relationship between Favor, the Grove, and World Vision.
