MAF and AIM Equip Church Planters with Focused Digital Libraries

Two hundred African church planting students will gain access to key Christian literature and study materials through a joint project between MAF-Learning Technologies (MAF-LT) and Africa Inland Mission (AIM) called 'Training in Ministry Outreach' (TIMO).   

TIMO’s goal is to establish churches in largely unchurched regions through a two-year missionary training program that will send teams of 10 students to each village. Training materials are key to the organization’s work. However, getting useful materials in hard-copy format into remote regions of central Africa is costly, cumbersome, and can be dangerous.  

Digital technology supplied by MAF translates TIMO’s cross- cultural ministry curriculum into a more useful format.

“The TIMO project curriculum includes 75 books, 60 of which are required reading,” said Phil Manning, MAF digital resources specialist. “It’s not practical to take a trunk of this many books into a village.”  Manning further noted that in some restricted access areas it is not safe to have Christian books visible.

Manning, along with MAF Volunteer Rebecca Lee, spent the past several months researching book publishers and requesting books in digital format. Of approximately 50 publishers reached, 10 offered books at no charge in digital PDF format or in hard copy to scan. About 30 additional publishers offered books for the royalty cost ($1.00 to $2.50).

Lee, an attorney, assisted with drafting contract documents with publishers as well as developing spreadsheets for internal monitoring.  

“The Lord’s hand has been involved in this project, helping bring resources together when there was no monetary incentive for these publishers to cooperate,” Manning said.

Manning hopes that ties with the publishing community through the TIMO project translate into future opportunities for MAF.  “In some cases, we helped publishers move forward with some tough decisions they hadn’t made before,” he said.
Digital conversion for TIMO is scheduled for completion in March. Missionary teams start using the materials in April.