Date of Award

4-2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

Department

Graduate Education

First Advisor

Steve Holtrop

Abstract

This narrative inquiry investigated the recurrent phenomenon of divine interventions in teacher recruitment at the American Christian Academy (ACA), a hard-to-staff K-12 school located in Ibadan, Nigeria. Inhibiting factors such as Boko Haram kidnappings and the Ebola outbreak stymied the already challenging international recruitment efforts, with half the elementary school teacher positions still vacant two weeks before the start of the 2014-2015 school year. However, through supernatural intervention all staff positions were filled. This narrative research presents an account of five such stories told from the perspectives of the recruited teachers as well as other staff members who observed or participated in the recruitment process. Beginning with older stories that highlighted the most unusual providential recruitments, the narrative proceeds to the most recent divine intervention in 2014. This inquiry explores what led up to and resulted from these supernatural recruitment occurrences. The same Scriptural principle that turned “fishing all night and catching nothing” into a boat-sinking load of fish, inspired our school administration to “stop fishing” on our own and to trust God “at His word” to supply all of our teacher needs. Our continual acts of faith did not disappoint. The impact of the collective experience on our school community over the years has created an organizational legacy of faith in God’s providence and timing and a reaffirmation of an age-old alternative to the more Modernist approaches of strategic planning.

Comments

Action Research Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Education

Download

Share

COinS