Teachers Outreach: Part 1

Living in Kuwait has a lot of advantages.  For example, it's the end of October and the temperature is still in the 80's Fahrenheit, which makes for some excellent days at the beach, something my friends and I occasionally enjoy.  It also never snows, and it doesn't get too cold, which is great.  I would die a happy man if I never had to drive in the snow or walk through sub-zero temperatures again!

There are a few critical disadvantages to living in Kuwait, though, the main one being the dissemination of information.  What I mean is that taking advantage of opportunities in Kuwait is far more difficult than where I'm from in the West.  For example, I have found a good beach in Kuwait that is a lot of fun.  But, there is no website, Wikipedia page, address, GPS coordinates, or anything else of that nature to find it.  I had to literally go with someone who has been there before, which is how he found it as well. 

Another example is with performing arts.  There are actually quite a few musical and performing groups in Kuwait, but the only way to really find out about them is through word-of-mouth.  While there are websites, they are not readily accessible on search engines like Google.  Also, since there are limited and confusing street addresses in Kuwait, you usually have to figure it out on a map, which adds another layer of complexity and difficulty. 

Candy to be put into bags

Unfortunately, this also affects the church in Kuwait.  Because there are only a few addresses to the few churches in Kuwait, it can be really challenging to find and get to a new church.  I've documented some of my own difficult experiences here, but it is sufficient to say that it took a long time and a lot of work to find the church that my wife and I call home.

Because of all this difficulty, I wanted to make a change and a difference.  I wanted to break down the barriers to resistance to getting to church.  I'm not familiar with all the different cultural backgrounds in Kuwait, but I was familiar with Western teachers living in Kuwait, so that is what I wanted to focus on at first.  I wanted to do whatever I could to make it easy for teacher expats to come to church if they wanted to, and I wanted to at least give them access to information about the Lighthouse Church.

I was sitting with a friend at a coffee shop one evening a couple years ago when we came up with the idea to have a sort of 'teachers outreach.'   As we passed ideas back and forth, I figured out that it's relatively easy to access a large number of teachers because many from each school live in the same buildings.  Once we found the buildings, we could easily get information to hundreds of teachers.

Candy in bags!

All we had to figure out then was what to give them.  My initial idea was some piece of paper with the church information and address on it.  As it was further discussed, we decided to put some candy in it to bless people in some small way, so even if they aren't interested in church, they could enjoy the treats.

The idea was further developed that there would be an outreach Friday at the beginning of the school year in September, which would be a week or so after the information was distributed.  There would be a type of potluck lunch after the service, along with some games and prizes to entice new teachers to come to church that day.  We would also find a way to get some buses to pick teachers up for that initial Friday. 


"It's brilliant," I thought to myself on that evening two years ago!  My friend and I (arrogantly) gave each other high fives as we believed that we figured out how to bring in teachers by the droves. All we had to do was put our plan into action once the summer and fall came.  Little did I know how much work that would entail...