What are we up to lately?

I suppose it's high time for a plain ministry update. TEN3 is mainly focusing on getting people trained in our three active countries--Nigeria, Zambia, and Tanzania--through our Global Engagement. Our training is a ton of work as I've blogged about previously), covering topics from "What subject is the queen of knowledge?" to "The Mozart Effect and the Sorting Flaw," to "A break-even point for a computer lab." It also includes critiquing our CTO and becoming familiar with our Families and Media material.* We have put all this training on our own Global Engagement site (using the Moodle platform) so that they can work through it sequentially. The five Nigerian trainees, Luka, Fred, Wale, Joshua, and David, are meeting together twice a week with Christie to pray and discuss what they are learning, as well as plan the implementation. Please pray for our trainees as they work through this training, that they understand it well, give us good feedback for the future, and that they will truly take to heart the lessons on being transformed themselves if they hope to transform society.

The next thing we are working on is fundraising for equipment so that when these young men are ready, they will be able to start training centers in different places. They are also looking into working with existing schools to get them running a computer lab with TEN3 education. We're praying for someone much more gifted than any of our current team to head this project. But we are also excited that Christie will be visiting the US, where she will be speaking to churches. We pray that through her the Lord will open people's hearts to give toward this need.

I am also continuing to work on primary school readers. Anthony has already converted the McGuffey Eclectic Readers to a workable format. A volunteer in New York is cleaning out all the obvious bugs from the conversion for me. Then I check it for needed context revisions and send it to Charis and Zangi in Zambia, who check it for appropriateness and put the pictures back in which the conversion process deleted. Then Edna in Zambia works with her son Ben through the lessons and gives me feedback about using it, and from there I do a final edit and publish it. Our prayer is to start literacy programs in TEN3 centers and in churches across Africa. As we grow strong readers and writers, we hope to see them form a jury committee and submit stories to replace the 19th-century American stories with African ones, that continue the spirit of teaching godliness as well as language skill.

Please pray for all these endeavors as we continue to move forward by faith.

*If you'd like to know more about any of this, contact me and I'd love to explain!