School Report gets an A*! by Ros Bunney and Jean Bath

In September 2002 both of us turned up for our first day at work in a new school – Jean as an Art teacher and Ros as an RS teacher, teaching young people aged 11 - 18.  Although we had known each other for some years through our membership of KC21, neither of us knew that the other was going to be there that day.  We were reminded of the way in which Jesus sent out His disciples in twos, and we both had an immediate sense that we were not here in this school merely to teach Art and Religious Studies, but for a greater and wider purpose. 
We immediately began meeting together in our lunch hour once a week, to pray for each other, for the school, and for particular situations which arose.  Jean was an experienced teacher who was returning to work after taking a career break to raise her family, but for Ros it was her first job as a newly qualified teacher.  We both found that we had some very challenging classes who stretched us beyond what we were naturally capable of dealing with, and some very troubled students who left us nonplussed as to how to help them.  As we prayed for these classes and students, we saw God do amazing things in turning around difficult situations, and establishing our authority.  One verse which became almost a mantra (if we can use that word!) for us was “He subdues peoples under me” (Psalm 47.3)
During this year, God gave us several clear words for our school.  Firstly, He gave us a picture, which we really identified with, of a giant cockroach squatting over the school and defiling it.  He showed us that although a cockroach has a hard and almost impenetrable shell, it has an underbelly which is more vulnerable.  Through this picture, we realised that the demonic forces which want to defile our school are vulnerable to assault from within the school, and so we made it our business from within the school to pray against and assault the forces of hell which seek to capture the present generation of children and young people.  On another occasion God gave us a picture of us with a fishing net.  Just as we were about to cast the net into the sea, the fish started jumping out of the water and landing at our feet without us having to fish for them.  Another time we had a picture of a torrent of water cascading through the building in which we both teach.  The torrent was sweeping some things away –  including some people, anything which was impeding God’s purposes for the school – and it was cleansing everything which was left behind.  Finally God spoke to us through Isaiah 45. 1-4 (NKJV), promising to open for us a double door, which we took to mean a door open to the staff and a door open to the students.  So we began to pray for opportunities to bring the Kingdom of God into the lives of colleagues, and for an opportunity to start some kind of Christian Union for the students.  After a year of praying in this way, armed with these promises from God, we took the step of writing to our principal to tell him that we had been praying in this way for a year, and to ask him if he would have any objection to us throwing this prayer time open to all staff, and inviting colleagues to join us in praying for the school.  To our surprise, he replied enthusiastically, thanking us for taking this initiative, giving us his full backing to start a staff prayer group, and asking us, while we were at it, if we would consider starting a Christian Union!  This was, of course, the opportunity we had been waiting for.
We began by emailing all staff and inviting them either to join us at our weekly prayer meeting, or to email us with anything they would like us to pray for.  We immediately started to receive on average 5 emails a week asking us to pray for all kinds of things.  We found that many staff were coping with really tragic situations at home, but because of their professionalism they were coming into work every day and not giving a hint of the difficulties they were facing at home.  It was a privilege to support these colleagues in prayer.  2 or 3 colleagues came to join us for prayer – we are now 5 “regulars”.  Other members of staff emailed us to ask us to pray for friends or family members in trouble.  We have seen some great answers to prayer.  One colleague’s daughter developed a severe virus which robbed her of her ability to walk.  We prayed for her and she was restored to full health.  Another colleague asked us to pray for a friend with a malignant brain tumour, who was in a critical condition.  Her email came just before Christmas.  Halfway through January we emailed her for an update on his condition and were told that he had recovered sufficiently to return to work!  Another colleague was ill in hospital for a year.  During that year she saw a number of fellow patients die.  We prayed for her, and she is now back at work and in good health.  A total of 5 doctors and nurses later told her that no one had expected her to live. At the start of this academic year, one of the school secretaries asked us to pray for her future daughter-in-law who was very ill and having chemotherapy, and it was looking as if her wedding would have to be postponed.  We prayed, she recovered and got married on time as planned.  They have settled well into married life, and she continues to be well - praise God !We also had opportunities to pray for people and lay hands on them.  Jean prayed for a student suffering from a chronic illness, who reported an immediate improvement in symptoms.  Ros prayed and laid hands on one of the cleaning staff who had a broken and infected wisdom tooth which was causing great pain.  She has since reported that there has been no further pain or swelling around the tooth.
Most exciting of all has been the Christian Club we run.  We decided not to call it Christian Union as probably no one would come!  Jean came up with the idea of calling it Coz Club, based on 1 John 4. 19 – “Coz He first loved us”.  During this club we have trained the students to use puppets.  The Coz Club puppet team has taken part in 2 Christmas carol services at the school.  We also used the puppets to present the Gospel in assembly to every Year group and their form tutors over the course of a week.  The puppet performance was followed up by a testimony by a Year 11 student who had been radically saved 2 years earlier, and who spoke with great boldness.  As a result of this, a Year 10 student accepted a neighbour’s invitation to go to church with her, and became a Christian the following Sunday.  As well as the puppets, we did Bible studies with the students at Coz Club.  We sent a letter home explaining what we would be doing at the club, and students have to obtain parental consent in order to join.  So we really have carte blanche to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in running this club.  We regularly share the Gospel with the students and give them opportunities to respond.  We pray for them, and we encourage them to pray for one another.  We started out, in the summer of 2004, with 6 students, 3 of whom were our own daughters!  Now we are regularly getting up to 45 students.  Over a period of 20 months, we have seen 26 of them commit their lives to Jesus, and although one or two have fallen by the wayside (as Jesus predicted in the parable of the sower) most have stayed with us and are growing in their faith.  They are eager to share with us their own experiences of answers to prayer and the ways in which they have heard God speaking to them.  It’s really thrilling to see them growing in grace.  Last summer we began to pray for others to help us as the numbers swelled.  In September God added to our number a young and enthusiastic teacher who was taking up her first teaching post and was keen to get involved in running the club.  Later on during the term, Youth for Christ sent in one of their schools workers to join us, and in January another Christian teacher joined the RS department and he is also helping us to run Coz Club.  As the demands increase, so God sends out reinforcements to help us.  We don’t believe we have seen all that God wants to do in our school yet.  We are determined not to settle for anything less than revival throughout the whole school community.  But we are convinced, from what we have seen God do already, that “He who has begun a good work in us (and in our school) will carry it on to completion”, just as He promised (Philippians 1.6).  He has recently given us a picture of children walking towards and onto the shadow of a cross on the school field, and He has highlighted to us Isaiah 33.6 which says “And there shall be stability in your time, an abundance of salvation, wisdom and knowledge…the reverent fear and worship of the Lord is your treasure and His.”