The PDP and the PRP...

During the last week of the leadership development course, we encouraged the students to make a PDP - a personal development plan where they outlined the practical steps they'd be taking in order to grow in their leadership over the next three months.

The PDP is designed to help them consider their different roles in life - a husband, a dad, a ministry team leader, a frontier missionary, a Bible teacher.... and to set goals for growth and development in each of these areas. Today, though, as the last of the LDC participants was about to leave for the airport, I joined them briefly to become part of a PRP - a puppy rescue patrol!

Last week, someone abandoned two little puppies in front of one of the villas where our LDC delegates were staying. Our two Ukrainian families were living there, and the children were absolutely thrilled to have puppies to feed and to play with. I'm guessing the dogs had been part of a litter in someone's house, and that they had been dumped when it proved difficult to find homes for them. They were very cute and friendly, and obviously quite used to being manhandled by children. But most of our LDC delegates left on Saturday, and the last family was heading to the airport this morning. Knowing that we couldn't simply leave those puppies alone in the street, the two little girls helped me load them into a cat carrier, so that I could drive them to the nearby animal rescue centre. I sat with them for a little bit, until they got used to the sights and sounds of the new place, and then I left them in the care of the rescue people. I knew that the vet would check them over and begin the process of giving them vaccinations.

Summer is not a good time to be a puppy in Spain: dozens simply get abandoned every year, when families go on holiday and decide that it's too expensive to put the dogs in the kennels for a few weeks. Some may gat "reclaimed" when the family comes home again, but many simply live wild in the "campo" (countryside) for the rest of their lives. So I hope that our two little guys do find a good home. Our Ukrainian and Canadian children who've been looking after them for the past week certainly did a lot of praying that the puppies would be kept safe and would find good families to take care of them.