August 2008
But how will he train leaders?
Submitted by nivins on Fri, 08/01/2008 - 10:00We have been interacting with Naveen, an evangelist/pastor/leadership trainer in India. Naveen is seeing many come to Christ and he is actively developing leaders for the many new groups of believers where he works. The challenge is that many of them don’t read or write even one word. He is asking MAF LT to help him develop leadership development materials that he can use with these leaders.
What do “materials” for non-literates look like? What are the issues in transforming training materials written for lettered cultures into materials for oral cultures? Should that even be attempted?We invite you to participate with us through prayer for wisdom as we wade into this with Naveen.Below is a recent e-mail from him.
Building National Capacity
Submitted by nivins on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 10:00It is fascinating for me to continue to discover the various ministry opportunities that MAF LT has stepped into around the globe. Several of our staff serve in remote parts of the world quietly building capacity for local situations. The following entry tells of one such situation.
MAF LT is transitioning out of assisting a medical college in North Central Asia because the workers there have successfully applied the LT instruction and tools given to them. Back in 2003, MAF began working with an organization working on retraining doctors and nurses with modern evidence-based medicine. This USAID-sponsored humanitarian project in the region had been providing training to doctors and nurses primarily through seminars but then saw the need to transition to a distance-education model. MAF LT worked with this organization to develop their capacity to create and deliver DE courses that allow doctors and nurses to acquire new medical skills and knowledge while continuing their practices in the small villages that dot this region. Doctor with Patient
LT Makes Sense in MAF
Submitted by jmanley on Fri, 08/01/2008 - 10:34In 1945 God challenged a handful of ex-military airmen to overcome geographic barriers to the Gospel. They answered the call with airplanes, forming a flight service known today as Mission Aviation Fellowship. Suddenly, days on the trail changed to minutes in the air. Missionary dreams of reaching people living in remote mountain valleys or impenetrable jungles gave way to the reality of doing it. They rejoiced that the Lord finally enabled them to surmount such formidable obstacles.
But then He presented a new challenge. By the end of WW II both military and airline operations routinely included 2-way radio communications. So, our early pilots, fresh from those environments, automatically integrated radios into their flight service. When missionaries saw our base staff routinely speak with pilots a hundred miles into the bush, they quickly realized the potential for their own work. “That’s amazing. Is there any way we could do that too?” they asked.
“Sure. Here’s how it works,” we answered and quickly found ourselves in communications ministry, installing radios in central offices and remote camps. Runners bearing notes stained with many days sweat gave way to instant conversations with near telephone ease. Today, setting up and maintaining a radio network comprises MAF’s entire ministry in some countries and an important part in others.
But, professional aviation’s demand for mastery of the growing body of information compelled us to adopt computers at the dawn of the digital era. MAF began automating shop, reporting and flight planning tasks. When missionaries saw the boon these strange machines provided to our record keeping, they asked, “That’s amazing. Is there anyway we could do that too?”
