Volunteers say they feel re-energised and ready to share the gospel with more local congregations following refresher training in Jos.

Fifty-five volunteers from 11 teams took part in the three-day training programme in early November. It is designed to encourage them as well as update their counselling, testing, vision sharing and team working skills.

Content is very practical and relevant to what volunteers experience when visiting local churches. Over the three days international coordinator Tassie Ghata shared new ways of doing counselling, testing and disclosure, care and support.

She explained how to live a life that models social righteousness – some of the volunteers heard about social righteousness for the first time - and gave participants plenty of time to ask questions and discuss issues they were facing.

At the end of the programme volunteers were asked to recommit themselves to serving in their teams for another two years. They each also developed a work plan with practical actions to take back and use in their team.

“We are so pleased all the volunteers recommitted themselves. We hope each of their teams will be active throughout 2018 and able to visit at least one church a month for vision sharing and testing,” said Tassie.

The volunteers came from Jos, Yola, Gombe, Bauchi, Lafia, Mangu, Fufore, Tafawa Balewa, Biu, Minna and Langtang. Four of the teams, which have not been active during 2017, now have sufficient committed members to begin regularly visiting churches in their areas to share the gospel and test for HIV/ AIDS.

This training was part-funded by a grant from the Barnabas Trust.