Africa

The Lesotho STS workshop has just wrapped up. There have been surprises. Most of the “excited to attend the conference” responders from a few months ago have not shown up. Is it because we did not offer this for free? Perhaps.. But “free attendance with lunches provided” would make it impossible for nationals to duplicate the workshop. Is it because of schedule conflicts? Perhaps. One thing is certain, the 16 faithful attenders will get extra attention, extra training and be better prepared to pass the method along.

Pray for all of them! They include nationals working in ministries with orphans, with Mission Aviation Fellowship and planting churches. They also include missionaries who are working with shepherd boys (Lesotho boys in the mountains must work from a young age and do not attend school), missionaries training church planters, working in accounting and as wives supporting their families here. more pics follow...

Mike Holman, Manager of our Digital Resource Team, received this message from ministry partner, Michael M., in Zambia, Africa. It reveals how far simple technology's impact reaches when accurately applied.

Mike,

Thank you very much. I received what you sent to me ...

These things are helping our pastors very well. Our digital library has 320 regular ministers who do use the teachings. We have burnt 410 CD's to give to pastors.

Please do pray for me.

I do have four planned activities to get into new places to establish digital facilities.

In March I will go to the Eastern part of Zambia to meet 150 pastors for three days. We shall be talking about how to use MP3's and CD's. They believe that these materials are important for them.

In May I will go to the western part of Zambia for three days to meet 90 pastors. We shall spend time talking about digital library and also I will take moments to burn them CD's and DVD's. I hope to start a library here and so we are also looking for an external disc like you provided to me. One pastor has agreed to donate a laptop computer. We pray that we can also install 4 desk top computers...

In July I have an invitation to go to the Northern side of Zambia to meet 230 pastors and we shall expose them to the digital library. They will be using computers from a church. So we pray that we shall leave them with enough teachings on videos and audio CD's. The distance is far and I will travel with 4 other pastors.

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.  

“LT (Learning Technologies) has sent a pilot back out into the field,” is how Bob Dontje describes his return to Lesotho, Africa last year.

From May to November 2008, Bob logged 267 flight hours during which he spent considerable time helping to put the God’s Story Project (an MAF-LT ministry partner) into Lesotho’s language—a benefit to the residents of that country’s mountainous regions where English is not the primary language.

As testimony to the excitement generated by LT, Bob recalled a simple exchange as he and two pastors walked together following a funeral. The pastors wanted to better lead their church members. They wondered how to get an education when they could not afford to leave.