HAFF's Secondary School

Close to 300 students from communities surrounding HAFF attend grades 7 through 13 at IPB, Institut Pratique de Bohoc (in English, Bohoc Training Institute or BTI), HAFF's flagship ministry. At this time of year, the teachers and students are in the midst of final exams. For most of the students, those exams are written by their teachers and take place at IPB in their normal classrooms. That is stressful enough. Three classes of IPB students, the 9th, 12th and 13th, are facing national exams this summer with their continued education at stake. If they don't pass this year's national exams, they can not advance to the next grade or to university, unless they retake and pass the exams. The three classes will be taking their exams off campus in other towns.

Please pray for the HAFF secondary school students who will be taking their national exams this year. The classes are pictured below. The 9th grade will be driven in to Pignon each day for their exams. Those students who are taking their exams in St Raphael or Grand Riviere will usually travel to the town where the exam is held the day before exams begin. They will camp out in a host school or church during the exams and come back home the last day of the exam or the next day. The roads are still in bad shape and, if the rains come, the river crossings can be a problem. Please pray for their safe travel, for clear minds and calm hearts and that they would behave in a manner to glorify Christ. Below are the national exam dates.

9th Grade (top photo): 25 – 27 June: Pignon (30 min drive).     12th Grade (2nd photo): 1 – 4 July: St Raphael (90   minutes).     13th Grade (3rd photo): 8 – 12 July: Grand Riviere (2 ½ hours).

HAFF students have generally done well on the national exams. Several years the laureate (highest scoring student) for the Department of the North in a particular grade has been a HAFF student. Last year, the 9th grade laureate for the Department was one of HAFF's students (his photo is at right). Community members have indicated that one of the benefits of sending their students to IPB is the opportunity to learn and practice English with native English speakers.

This year, in addition to April Lambiotte teaching 11th and 12th grade English (see the 19 April 2013 post on the HAFF blog), Rachel Wilson has been teaching 7th and 8th grade English. Rachel works with IPB English teacher Mikerlande (Mme Lesly) Charles and helps write and grade tests. Mme Lesly said, “She helps me a lot with practicing English pronunciation. It is better to work with her because we can separate the classes.” Rachel will be remaining in the US next year for school. Mme Lesly commented, “She helps me correct papers and exams, I will miss her!”

Three times during the students' spring break, Rachel also met with about 30 students for extra help. Rachel said, “What made me want to continue to teach in the school was the thirst for knowledge that a majority of the kids have and at the end of the class periods some of them would stay in their seats and ask me to continue to teach them new things.”