Good Shepherd Schools: Spaces for Hope
A ministry of the Presbyterian Church in Baghdad, the Good Shepherd School began with a vision to create a kindergarten to serve the community and provide a place where the Good News could be shared with children and their families, especially those who are not (yet) of “the household of faith.” The Good Shepherd School (which now has 94 children in its kindergarten and another 16 in the nursery) was beloved by the families whom it served and soon, those families asked Rev. Farouk Hammo, the pastor of the Presbyterian Church under which this ministry falls, to extend the school into elementary grades. The hard work of securing government permission, building out more classrooms (with gifts from The Outreach Foundation) and hiring qualified teachers was completed several years ago. Gradually adding classes, the elementary school now goes through grade 4 and has 60 little ones! And with a vision to serve autistic children – for whom few services exist in Iraq – the Good Shepherd School has begun preparing classrooms for this purpose. They are working with another Outreach partner, the Blessed School in Beirut, to train teachers for these special needs children. Outreach is honored to be undergirding this new endeavor, as well.
Iraq, over the past few months, has experienced a lot of protests, political upheaval, and even military action, as we all know from our news. The schools have continued on, despite it all, as Rev. Farouk reports that:
…during the last five months, even when most of the Baghdad schools stopped and closed their doors, we did not. The Ministry of Education, which supervises our schools, was happy for our action
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