For the past couple of months, I have been teaching about health in our Monday training meetings, working through some of Benin’s more common illnesses and health problems. Trainees then present the material at other smaller meetings, spreading the word and getting teaching practice.

We culminated our meetings with a health fair. This was the first health fair most of our trainees had ever experienced. I have done three other health fairs in town, and two of our trainees helped with those events, but the rest of the trainees are either new to the church or from another village, so they had never been to a health fair.

While most people in town were hiding in their homes because of a solar eclipse, a couple of my young people and I got the tables together and put up the posters. As the eclipse ended and people came out of hiding, the health fair started up. The teachers knew their stuff and taught the people who clustered around their tables. All their training over the previous couple of months became more than theory as they put it into practice. We had a great turnout. We estimate more than 100 people stopped by, and they kept coming until we had to close the fair because it was getting dark. The people were very interested and wanted us to continue the next day, but that request will have to be fulfilled another time.

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