Agape Training School
Agape’s10th Ministry School: II Session
From December 2-6, the 2nd session of Agape’s 10th Annual Ministry School took place in Uzhgorod, Ukraine.
The Ministry School is a special program designed to prepare Christians for orphanage ministry, and is made up of 5 week long sessions over the course of a year.
The subjects covered in this session were: working with traumatized children, psychology of traumatized children, types of child raising, and 4 steps to healthy personhood.
This session was taught by Jan Simmering, who has 40 years of experience as a counselor and has worked as an orphanage director, as well as director of social service organizations, both government and privately owned. His wisdom, experience and love for people was a true gift for the Ministry School students. Through his teaching, we were able to take a closer look at our own lives, at our successes and failures, and honestly examine the roots of the attitudes and actions that shape our lives.
An inseparable part of studying in Agape’s Ministry School are the less formal times of fellowship - evenings of sharing, celebrating birthdays together, sitting up late over a cup of tea (or 5). Honestly, no one wanted to go home! Still, now we have the 3rd session to look forward to!
We are grateful to the ‘Nehemiah Learning Center’ of Uzhgorod for giving us such a cozy place to live and study, supplying a warm and welcoming setting as well as delicious food.
This poem was written during this session by one of the Ministry School students:
“Agape is the strength hidden deep in our hearts.
Agape causes locked doors to be unbarred.
This Love gives us the key to our own deceitful heart,
Letting us see ourselves as we truly are...
A sick man cannot heal others
Nor a wounded man bind the wounds of his brothers.
Agape is that Balm of Gilead
That brings life to that which was dead,
Agape is our prayer winging its way to God
For those whose strength is almost gone.
Though the skies above may seem dark and gray,
Obscuring from sight the sun’s bright rays,
I know that Agape Love, come what may,
Warms hearts wounded along life’s way.
We want to thank each one of you
Words can be cheap, I know it’s true...
But together we’ve learned that the happiness we sought
Is learning to see another’s pain with our HEARTS.”
