The time is now

We've always known that to see education that helps transform a whole society, the biggest part will be the primary-level education. For years, though, that wasn't even on the table for us. We knew of a lot of things that were wrong with primary school education, both in the US and in Africa, but we just didn't have the right opening, or the right background, to do anything about it. We'd rather assumed that of the adults we've been training in transformational education, eventually some of them would be called to reform primary school.

Yet at the same time, we knew we've been racing a clock. If we're reading the trends correctly, the web is quickly advancing a new educational system that will make college degrees obsolete, and make secondary school all about becoming able to compete in global exams for certifications in the student's intended field. It will also largely eliminate in-person teachers in favor of everyone learning from webinars, with just a supervisor/assistant in the classroom. This largely depersonalized system will reduce much discipleship opportunities, creativity, and community strength unless we can offer something better before it takes over. It will also subject young minds around the world to the agenda of a few.

Then in 2013, we got our first request for transformational education at the primary school level. It was by teachers interested in our program in Zambia, and so we planned for me to go over there and work with the teachers on it. Well, it didn't work out for me to go, but that was because God had better plans, both for me and the ministry. For me, it meant getting to be in the US to court and marry Kenneth. For the ministry, it allowed more pieces to be put into place. We refined our teacher training to disciple teachers of any discipline, not just computers. We developed aids for running a school with a networked lab so that, with a little more development, teachers can hopefully work with us easily. I got training on relating cross-culturally and on effective church planting. Anthony and I encountered books we worked through that change the paradigm of children's education (particularly, Gutta-Percha Willie by George MacDonald, "Teaching of Arithmetic: The Story of an Experiment" by L.P. Benezet, "The Lost Tools of Learning" by Dorothy Sayers, and The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise.

In early 2015 we got our first request for a specific curriculum for primary school students: Christian computer education. I wrote about that here. We developed a year's worth (there's more that can be done), and it has so far been very well-received in Nigeria, as something excellent, fun, and useful to a wide variety of students.

Soon before I left for Nigeria, our Zambia director, Collins Sakalunda, expressed how he was excited about our vision and tactics for transformational education, but was disappointed that it didn't really reach his children's greatest needs. He and his wife had tried several different schools and were not impressed with the academic or spiritual progress their children gained. Couldn't TEN3 help give their children a better education in the core subjects, not just computers?

Well, we told him, we've had an aim to reach that area for a long time, but would need their help to make it happen. So we developed a strategy. We are gathering textbooks from before 1926, both because that makes them public domain, and because that puts them before the era of Dewey and Rockefeller's radical disfiguring of education. I choose the books, Anthony and three other volunteers convert them to a usable format, two of Collins' daughters edit any mistakes in the conversions and make notes of references unfamiliar to them. Then I format them for publishing, and Mrs. Sakalunda uses it to teach their youngest boy, and sends me feedback about how it went. Collins then starts sharing it with fellow pastors and educators, who we hope will work with us to contextualize it more for present-day Africa.

Interestingly, just as we started to make these plans with Collins, partners in Nigeria started telling us that the reading books would greatly help them as well. So many in Africa, even after attending whatever schools are available in their area, are still illiterate but longing to be able to read their Bibles and improve their lives with access to education.

The time is now. Please pray for us as we now tackle the challenge of teaching at the most fundamental level. May we raise up a truly powerful generation that can discern and reason, and that builds all their reasoning on the truth of Christ.

One of the young teachers I got to disciple in Nigeria

This is Gideon. He's a soft-spoken young man who grew up in the village of Billiri. He's the oldest of his family, and was named for the Gideon of the Bible who trusted the Lord to overcome the enemy when it seemed impossible. Eric Black, a missionary in Billiri, mentored Gideon as he grew up, including teaching him our CTO.

Gideon so appreciated the thorough instruction of computer skills, the studying through the Bible that helped him to see the whole picture of God's redemptive work, the strong teacher-student dynamic the program encourages, and how he was taught not just to do a few things, but to try new things, thinking through problems rather than abandoning them.

Gideon talking with the Blacks, the day we went to visit the school where Eric teaches.

Gideon is now our CTO teacher in Gombe, about 90 minutes' drive from Billiri. He strives to make the CTO as beneficial to his students as it was to him when Eric taught him. He told me how sometimes his students ask him how to do something, and rather than giving a quick answer, he makes them think it through, applying what they've already learned so they can really understand the concept.

He has a heart to make a big impact in his country. He shared with me plans he has to start a fellowship with like-minded young people for accountability, discipleship, personal and community development, and business ventures. I gave him some encouragement but also some cautions about the presumptions he was making. He's loved working through our teacher material in which we discuss how important it is to strive for Christlikeness in our lives as we teach and how transformation starts with an obedient faith, and how hard the enemy works to divert us.

Please pray for Gideon as he continues to teach people in Gombe, including some pastors who were blessed by our Pastors & Technology seminar and want to learn more. I also pray he may be able to partner with churches in Gombe to offer the "Learning with Computers for Primary Students" at our center. Finally, please also pray for the Lord's guidance for his future, with all his aspirations, that he may attain all that God has for him.

We're not giving up, because we know the Transformer

Nigeria is a place where it's tempting to give up. Frequent electric outages, unstable ecomomic situation, terrorism, and armed robbery all are devastating to any school we try to partner with there. Sometimes, it just seems impossible to get something working long-term there.

But then there's Joseph. He was a difficult and wayward son who did not complete any school his parents sent him to. He was one whom it would be tempting to give up on. But then his parents sent him to our CTO school in Kaduna, because they heard the claim that the CTO is life-changing. Joseph's father even enrolled along with him to encourage him. Joseph completed the program and indeed has been exhibiting life change. His father also testified that the program helped him. He went to heaven just last month, but Joseph is still with that school taking more courses.

There's no magic formula that makes our schools work in an unstable climate. We make it as robust as we can, and then the rest is prayer and faith. Likewise, there's no magic in our program that makes it life-changing; rather, we simply use it to show the One who is life-changing, explain how He has been working throughout history to redeem mankind, and how that redemption re-shapes the way we work with computers and live our lives. So we don't give up, but press on in faith and prayer.

Yes, I had to worry about raindrops through a leaky roof while teaching editing.

But neither rain nor melted wires to overloaded generators nor dark of night shall keep us from our mission!

Getting slammed

If ever I absolutely would not have time to blog, it would be now. But I'm doing so because at this point, taking the time to fill you in that you may pray for us is more important than struggling more to get out of this hole.

Back when TEN3 was doing team trips to Africa, we noticed that every time we were preparing for a major trip, just as we were needing to revise, upload, download, and print (or burn) our materials for the workshops we would be hosting, something major would go wrong with our server. Well, now it's just me going to Nigeria, and when I ought to be going over the material I'll be presenting, praying for the trip and the attendees, familiarizing myself with the consulting manual so I can discuss the steps with partners, doing research on a new requested primary school initiative that we dearly hope to recruit developers for while I'm there, I have hardly touched any of that the last few days, because, well:

• The car: It started with just a few things months ago. The door came apart. The auto parts guy suggested gluing it back together. I did, coming up with a funky clamping system to set it. After the curing time, I tried it; it didn't hold. Tried whole process again. Still didn't hold. Realized it needed fasteners through the handle part. Bought some. They didn't work. Bought a different set. They didn't hold. Door handle got worse. Bought two other sets, and stuff to rig up the other part that got messed up. Still didn't hold. Asked my dad for help; he tried screws. It held for about a day. Finally called my pastor who also works at a tractor repair place to ask if he could rivet it. He was able to borrow a rivet gun and fix it. In the meantime, the door opener on the other side broke, and a windshield wiper broke off, and I have three chips in the windshield. All those still waiting to be fixed. Then last week, a fuse blew that left us in Lubbock at night without headlights. We imposed on a student of Kenneth's to take us to Walmart to get more fuses (because even though I used to carry spares in the glove compartment, they weren't there). Almost gave up because all the ones the manual said were for headlights were intact, but finally checked the fuse for the glove compartment light, because that was out, and we had headlights again.
• The pickup: We got it without a working heater core. We had bought a replacement, but hadn't yet bothered to get it put in. Finally last Friday I think, I was frustrated with computers and so decided to do something with my hands: I would get that heater core in! Found a youtube series on how to do it for a similar model, spent about 6 hours finding hard-to-reach nuts and screws, some of which wouldn't cooperate, finally loosened everything I thought I needed, and still couldn't get the HVAC box out. Kept looking for 2 days, and finally decided I'll need help. Left the pickup kind of in pieces until someone from my church would be able to help me on Saturday (tomorrow).
• Both vehicles: Since the pickup was in disorder, Kenneth took the car to work. It started making noise and overheating on his way home in the morning (he works 9pm-7am, though this particular morning he was over an hour late getting out of work). Turned out to be a belt that snapped and wrapped around the fan. I would have to go buy the belts and bring the tools so we could fix it. So I spent an hour or so with those hard-to-reach bolts getting the pickup driveable again while Kenneth attempted take a cold, cramped nap in the car. Finally got the pieces back together, started backing it out of the driveway, and smelled gasoline powerfully. It was streaming out of some part the name of which I don't know, but at least it looked easy to reach. I called my grandma, who agreed to give me a ride to Lubbock, while my mom, who was running errands in Lubbock, picked up Kenneth to get the belts. I then realized I needed to go to the auto store myself because we were lacking the size sockets we actually need for the job. We loosened the smog pump and alternator, but the power steering pump, even though we loosened the two obvious sliding bolts and the pivot point, wouldn't budge. After over half an hour trying, we gave up and called Daddy, who took off early from work, though after he'd gone home to get changed and get more tools we might need, it was after 5 when he arrived. Oh, and did I mention all this was in the cold rain, and involved me having to lie down in the nasty wet parking lot? Then together he and a kind random stranger who stopped to help STILL could not get it to move. We decided to call the minister at Kenneth's church in Lubbock and ask if he could get a couple hours' sleep in the church before work. My parents decided to take me home with them (because our muddy caliche road would be quite dangerous to my dad's mustang) and we'd come back to figure it out in the morning. Well, we got Kenneth to the church and there was hubbub because the toilet had flooded the sanctuary badly, and he ended up staying awake to help with that rather than going to sleep. He then worked all night, having only gotten two short uncomfortable naps all day.
• The next day: Daddy drove me to get Kenneth from work, nauseated from exhaustion and caffene. His priest kindly offered to take him to the church again, and this time he actually did get sleep. After probably two hours looking and trying things, Daddy found another sliding bolt you can't see; it has to be felt for. We could then get all the parts to move, but learned that the one belt that Kenneth bought yesterday that he couldn't take with him to compare, was the wrong size. We went back to the auto place to get the right belt, and also the part to the pickup that was leaking fuel. We finally got all the belts fixed about noon, then got something to eat, and so I picked up Kenneth and take him home so I could tend to the dogs (who had been left alone inside for 28 hours) and the chickens (who hadn't been fed for about 44 hours). Glad to have that behind us, I started preparing a nice meal and decided I'd better change the oil in the car before something else goes wrong.
• And then...I wake Kenneth up, still exhausted from having no sleep the day before. I offer to drive him to work, even though I have a ton of things to do, because he seems too tired to drive. We get out there, and the headlights in the car don't work, and there is no fuse blown. We fiddle and fiddle and finally Kenneth calls his boss and says he'll pay for the gas if he'll come all the way from Crosbyton, on his night off, to take him to work, and I'll get him in the morning when it's light.
• But wait, there's more!We discover the floor is wet, where the refrigerator leaked (already to the point of damaging the floor to some extent; not visible, but you can feel it stepping on it) and Kenneth had fixed a few days ago (including taking a special trip to Lubbock to buy a new cutoff valve). The only way to stop it for now is to cut off the sink, so no washing dishes tonight. We'll probably need more plumbing pieces, and crawling underneath the house, to fix it for good this time.
• Meanwhile... The pipe under the bathroom sink, which the bacterial cleaner just seemed to make worse, and which I'd tried to clean with vinegar and baking soda but instead stopped completely, and so which Kenneth took apart to clean out, leaked when he put it back together. We still have a pan under it catching water, which I still have to bail out until that's fixed. I still have pieces of the wallpaper project I started months ago lying around, needing to get done on a day warm enough to open the doors (which are becoming fewer). The chicken coop is still largely exposed, which needs to be remedied before freezing weather hits. Our bedroom is still bubblegum and hershey colors, which we'd promised our landlord when we moved in a year ago we'd paint over. We still need to figure out how to oil our heater before winter. I crashed (pretty much permanently) two laptops I was using to develop our material on Puppy. And our kitchen sinks still back up whenever I run the washing machine, despite dozens of treatments with bacterial cleaner.

Now don't get me wrong. I realize we still have much to be grateful for. We're not grieving the loss of a loved one like my brother-in-law, I'm fully recovered from last month's illness, our dog whose leg was amputated is doing well now and even doing great about staying home rather than running off. I got to share about my upcoming trip with my church and they took a love offering for me. And of course we have wonderful people (especially Daddy!) who are going out of their way to help us out. But whatever the devil is trying to do to us, he's at least got us exhausted and frustrated. So please pray, not just for the resolution to all these little crises that cannot seem to stay fixed, but also that God's purposes for them to sanctify us will prevail rather than the evil one's purposes to distract, discourage, demoralize, or derail us.

Reaching the '3'

The '3' in our name TEN3 stands for "Discipling to the third generation." It's a reference to 2 Timothy 2:22, "The things that you heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." We don't just want to teach a new generation, but to teach in such a way that they pass on wisdom to the generation after them, and so on. We're getting the opportunity to live that out now in our two newest partner countries.

Pastor Tukiko learned about us through a tweet, and called us, "chomping at the bit," as Ray put it, to start a computer school to disciple the young people in his community. Ray spent about 11 weeks consulting him over distance, and then Anthony went over to Tanzania to work with Tukiko, Jackson, who was to be the school administrator, and Jacob, Abigail, and Mary, the teachers-to-be. Their school is running, and we thank God that things are going well. Now, in another city in Tanzania, a lady named Miriam, who started an NGO to serve the needs of women and children, wants to start a computer school as part of her outreach. So we are doing the same consulting, but this time, we are having Tukiko participate. The goal is that the next time someone in Tanzania wants a computer school, Tukiko will do the bulk of the consulting with Ray and Anthony observing to chip in when needed, and from then out, he will be the official TEN3 consultant in Tanzania. He will carry on the ministry in his country: though he'll be able to call on us as necessary, he will be the one in charge.

We're getting to do the same thing in Zambia. Collins Sakalunda contacted us about starting a computer school, and again Ray consulted him, Anthony traveled there and did further instruction, and now he is running it as a ministry of his church. Another Zambian, Mr. Chiti, wants to start a computer school, so we are consulting him with Collins' participation, with the view that next time, he will be in charge and we will watch and help, and from then on, we hope he'll be ready to do it on his own.

That's what we also want to see in my department, curriculum. For a couple of reasons, I have not yet been able to get teachers available and dedicated to long-term participation yet, but my job is not just to write curriculum. It's to train African educators in the transformational principles and effective tactics so that they can start writing the kinds of materials their students need--material that is practical, affordable, culturally relevant, and Christ-centered. As they spread this teaching, students and fellow teachers will build their reasoning on a Christian worldview and sound educational principles, and be able to in turn make more and even better education.

That's been our hope and prayer since the beginning of TEN3. It's exciting to see the first steps from the second generation to the third, making the '3' a reality. May the Lord grant us the grace to finish what we've started.

Needing an off-the-grid enthusiast to appear out of the blue

Oh for an expert in living off the grid who is good at teaching and called to be a missionary!

We've been spinning wheels evaluating how to help partner schools in Nigeria. The power grid in Nigeria is extremely unreliable, probably off more than on. So computer schools have to rely on generators to make up the difference. Well, an economic crisis in Nigeria this year cause fuel to become widely unavailable, and very expensive when it is available.

My colleague Nathan has researched and experimented with ways to help with this, including solar panels and wind turbines made out of drills. We've also thought about waterwheels for rainy season and collecting the cooking oil from street vendors to use in generators. The trouble with the first three options is that to really work well in a computer school, they require a massive battery bank, which can be either a) easy to maintain but thousands of dollars, or b) not so expensive (using things like old car batteries), but requiring somebody who really knows what they're doing to maintain. The cooking oil option also requires an expert to keep it from ruining the generator.

We could try raising money for the high-end battery banks, but our team has never been good at fundraising. Also, that's not really what our organization is called to do. We're about local sustainability and reproducibility. What good would it do students to get a computer education at a school that has a great power solution, if they then go to a workplace that needs power and doesn't have it? The solution we want to see is a way we can make "how to make and maintain your own battery bank and power sources" a course in these schools, so the schools can not only supply their own power needs, but also be teaching students how to do it, and then they can take that knowledge wherever they go, helping with this problem throughout their country. None of us, unfortunately, has expertise in this. George might have been able to pull it off, but he and Kathy been called away from TEN3 to missionary care in Burkina Faso for this phase of their life. So, my prayer now is that the Lord may send someone who can go over and share Jesus' love by teaching power solutions that will work in Nigeria.

Lord, You know the suffering of Your people in Nigeria. Persecution and terrorism, economic crises, educational needs, greed squashing good ideas, and so much more. Won't You show the world that You are sufficient to overcome all these distresses by giving Your people the wisdom and ability to bless their communities in lasting ways?

Praying for new, strong beginnings in our oldest partner country

A rather unfortunate principle that I've heard fellow missionaries express, and have found very true for me, is that whenever we have the most exciting things going on to write about, is the time we write the least, because we're too busy! So, what tied me up last month? Deciding I'm going back to Africa, and getting things ready for that! Those of you who get my newsletter know that already (and by the way, you can subscribe by clicking this link), but it's time to update here, too.

I've shared here and here about the curriculum I've been developing for primary school kids in Africa. The official name is "Learning with Computers for Primary Students" because it's not just learning about computers or in general how to use them, but using them to improve their learning in multiple areas. I saw an article recently on how adding computers and now tablets to schools has been a $60 billion hoax, and I agree with its thesis--screens in a classroom where there is already a poor educational approach only makes things worse. But with the right teaching principles, they can be used as successfully as the first computer school Anthony started years ago, because they provide fresh opportunity to use the principles that make for great education. It's the teaching, not the tech, but our ministry has over and over been able to use tech as the opportunity to get to the teaching. I've now been requested to come to Nigeria to present this educational program at two symposiums, helping school staff understand how to use it to disciple their kids and improve their education overall.

My travel dates are October 27-November 17. I sent in my paperwork for the visa a few weeks ago, but it can take up to two months for it to be issued, so please pray that the visa comes in time. In the meantime, we also need discernment about what I should take with me (more about that and our equipment quandaries later), and for how I should spend my time. I had a lady helping me develop the next phase of "Learning with Computers," (I have it ready for grades 3-4; this would be for grade 5), but she is no longer available. I also had been working on a desktop publishing course as an elective for the CTO. And I have a couple of more recently developed programming courses to edit and update. So, figuring out which should be my priority right now is my challenge. I'm leaning toward the grade 5 one, but hesitate a little because I'd like to see what I've already developed in action and get feedback from teachers first.

There's a lot to wonder about. Christie told me that the success of the program will likely depend on whether the schools send to the symposium head teachers who have the pull to implement it, or lower-status teachers who may love the program but not be able to get it going. Also, there's still the concern about the economic crisis in Nigeria. The computer centers are struggling to get a consistent supply of electricity. And so often when we go over, things seem to go well, but then misunderstandings or the communication barriers kill what we started. We have learned a lot from these experiences that has helped us strengthen and refine our training (which is a major reason we are seeing such good progress in Tanzania and Zambia), but dead-ends from the past are still enough to make me wonder, will it work this time? Still, I think the only way it can work is for us to keep our connection alive, which includes time on the ground, to talk and pray in person, to see their work and their struggles and actually stand in the classrooms where they teach to understand what we're dealing with. We're praying this may also be a time of real discipleship, especially with Emmanuel, who is teaching the CTO in Kwoi, with Ruth, who teaches programming and who Christie thinks will be valuable in developing TEN3 education, and with Gideon, who has begun to teach the CTO in Gombe. I really want to connect with these people and let them know that we're here for them, want to help them succeed in what God has laid on their hearts.

One other note: I'd like prayer for my health. I got sick about a week ago, and even though I only felt really bad one day, and all the other symptoms are gone, fatigue has lingered. I can sleep for 8 hours and feel like I only got 4, take a nap in the day to try to perk me up, and then still be worn out by 6pm. So I'm falling behind in a lot of things, and it's likely to get worse as my husband is being asked to work extra days, so house work that he would normally take care of might have to fall to me.