Chuck and Emily Stevens
Chuck and Emily Stevens have worked at Kigali International Community School (KICS) since August, 2012. KICS is a K-12, U.S. accredited international Christian school with about 320 students from over 25 different countries. The vision of KICS is to impact the world for Christ by preparing servant leaders to choose character before career, wisdom beyond scholarship, service above self and a lifestyle of participation over apathy. It was founded in 2006, seeking to meet the need for high quality, western style education for the missionary and aid workers serving in Rwanda. The school also serves a large number of local children, making up about 40% of the population. KICS graduates have been accepted into universities all over the world, including American universities such as MIT and Pepperdine.
In Emily’s first year, she taught both English and science courses, as she has degrees in both areas. She currently teaches middle and high school science, serves as the department chair and middle school team leader and serves in a key role as a liaison between teachers and administration. She has also written the curriculum for all her courses from scratch. Chuck initially came to KICS as a math teacher, but his computer science degree lead to him being in charge of the school network and technology. He now serves on the leadership team as Director of Technology, in charge of staff and student technology training, teaching high school Computer Programming and maintaining the hundreds of computers the school currently utilizes. He also started a gifted and talented program for elementary and middle school students and coaches middle school basketball.
Chuck and Emily are uniquely qualified to serve at KICS because of years of English as a second language training they went through in America. All classes at KICS are in English, but many Rwandans have French or the local Kinyarwanda as their main language spoken at home. There has also been a large influx of Koreans into Rwanda in recent years, and that population is growing at KICS, often with the students speaking very little English when they first arrive. KICS has an English Language Learning department, but it is also necessary for classroom teachers to utilize proper strategies when instructing these students.
Students are not required to be Christian to attend KICS, but they are requireded to attend Bible class and chapel. Chuck and Emily have had the same chapel group for the past 5 years. It is a time for bible study, worship, mentorship and deep discussion. All students from Kindergarten through 12th grade also participate in community service, helping out other local schools who don’t have the same resources they do.
In addition to helping students to excel academically and live out a biblical worldview, KICS also fills a role of missionary support. Because parents have a high-quality option for their children, they are able to stay in the field longer, doing amazing work such as digging water wells, providing job training to help women escape lives of prostitution, church planting, pastor training, midwifery and many other missions. The KICS community is made up of amazing people from all over the world, and Chuck and Emily feel blessed to be a part of it.
You can contact Chuck and Emily via email: [email protected].
You can see more on their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/chuck.a.stevens.
