CEF 'Zambia News' Newsletter - April 2008

Dear all,

I have been very negligent in sending out Christian Education Fund newsletters – none since August 2007. Sorry about that; I can assure you that it doesn’t reflect an attitude of thinking the CEF and my recent trip to Zambia don’t need prayer support.

I was in Zambia from 1^st to 17^th April. It was a very encouraging trip, and possibly the most productive of the 7 visits I have made. One of the main reasons for this is that the CEF is in its best state ever. Here’s some news.

The CEF

Marjanne is taking exactly the approach I’ve been advocating for the last couple of years – concentrating on a few local schools and on training teachers. This has meant that the main activities of the CEF recently have been:

1. Weekly visits to Kuunika pre-school to train the teachers. The two teachers there have been very keen, responsive and reliable. It is a great encouragement to see the improvements there. Especially when we consider the great potential there is through pre-schools – the two best schools I have seen in Zambia base their success on pre-school work.
2. Regular visits to three other local schools. This focused approach, building up relationships and giving training that is specific to needs, is much more effective than spreading our resources more thinly. It may sound less impressive than trekking through the bush to give blackboards to 25 schools, but in the long term it is far more fruitful.
3. Conferences to train all the teachers in the 20 schools we support.
4. Visits to all the other schools to assess their needs and maintain contact, but not to distribute materials – this has gone on hold until we have made proper assessments of how the materials are being used and what the greatest needs are. It is all too easy to give materials simply because we see a need, without considering how they will be used; this can even worsen the education being given in the schools.

While I was in Zambia we were able to work together to make progress on a number of fronts:

1. We visited a number of schools to decide what our future relationship with them should be. This included deciding in favour of some we were previously negative about; having to give serious reprimands to three teachers about repeated dishonesty; formally ending our relationship with a few schools – some are no longer suited to the help we are giving, and some are proving unreliable in their use of our help. Although this is disappointing, we hope it acts as a pressure and incentive on other schools to take responsibility and respond rightly to our support.
2. We decided not to set up a school at Covenant College . The main reason for this is that our emphasis, as is stated in our governing document, must be on helping the local community schools and promoting Christian education within them, not providing schooling directly ourselves. While there are advantages to founding and running our own school, we must be helping the locals to provide education for their children, not encouraging the prevalent attitude of looking to the white man to provide for them. We had thought that having our own school would provide a place through which we could train other teachers. However, while this sounds good in theory, it is doubtful that it would be effective in practice. In our current situation, starting a school would distract from the work of regularly visiting schools to provide practical training to teachers, and that is the most effective method for us at present.
3. We interviewed a Christian teacher called Dorica. She has both South African teacher-training, and Zambian mission-training. She is from Eastern Zambia . We need to work out if the time is right to employ another member of staff to train teachers, and if she is the right person. Please pray that we would have wisdom in this matter, and that God would guide Dorica also.
4. We re-wrote the constitution of the CEF and re-structured its management team. This now consists of Marjanne Hendriksen, Mirjam Molenaar, Solomon Lungu and me. With Cammy Macleay being called upon if we have a split vote.
5. We are re-starting distributing materials to schools now that we have reassessed needs. We will continue to provide basic materials such as chalk and stationery to all our schools. We will be providing more to those few schools that have proved themselves particularly reliable and competent. For example, good pre-school materials to Kuunika. Class sets of text-books to Mtumpha where the teachers are both very competent and reliable and are keen to learn from the Bible.
6. A big and urgent need for the CEF is a more suitable vehicle for Marjanne to use (she has been using a rather wrecked car that is not meant for Zambian off-roading). The trustees of Covenant College Zambia Trust agreed that CCZT should buy a vehicle to be used by the college and the schools. CCZT is currently raising funds for this. As the CEF has nearly sufficient funds to buy such a vehicle, we agreed to make them a loan so we can get the vehicle quickly. We expect the vehicle to cost around £12,000.
7. We got a number of other important administrative jobs done, such as re-writing our travelling secretary’s job description to make his work more effective.

Non-CEF news

1. The Covenant College Zambia Trust AGM was long as usual, but that was because there were many important issues to consider. The college is developing rapidly. It was a great encouragement to see the assistant lecturer, Heinrich Zwemstra, and his family settled in and so eminently suitable for the work and situation. The new dormitory for the students is completed, there is now a reliable electricity supply and even internet connection at the college – which transform living conditions. The current students seemed to be a good intake, both in terms of understanding the lectures I gave to them, and their commitment. Some are cycling for 8 hours each way in difficult conditions each week to be at the college.
2. I was very encouraged by the work Phil is doing on the farm to spread good farming techniques to locals, especially current and former students (all pastors are also farmers). The method he is teaching is really a set of principles which puts the protestant work ethic into an African agricultural context. Its seems to have great potential if they have the discipline to put it into practice.
3. I preached at a local village church. Again my visit reminded me what a mixture the Zambian church situation is. There is such a consciousness of God and acknowledgement of him in public life, as well as a hunger to learn. Yet the leadership of the churches is weak and untaught. This emphasises further the importance of the work Covenant College is doing.

Please continue to pray for the work in Zambia . If you would like more information, contact me or see www.zambianmissionsupport.org.

Joseph

Update (May 2008)

Dear all,
 
I have just received the following information which I was unable to include in my latest Zambia news:
 
The CEF held another teacher-training conference on Wednesday (30th April).  One of the difficulties with the work of teacher-training in Zambia has been finding the teachers to be very passive and not taking an active role in their training.  Therefore it was an encouragement for Marjanne and the teachers to be together and see the teachers get more and more involved in the programme; answering questions, thinking, suggestions etc. Also to find that they remember things from the other conferences.
We did much about preparing Bible lessons, but also about lesson planning, Farming God's Way* and about teaching Bible songs.
 
* Covenant College farm is promoting in the local area something called "Farming God's Way".  It is not claiming that this is the way God tells us we must farm, but looks at biblical principles of living responsibly and of stewardship and at how vegetation grows naturally in an African context when there is no human intervention, and then uses this to give farming methods which are an African agricultural version of the Protestant work ethic.
 
Please pray that this conference would help teachers to teach effectively and especially to point the children to Christ.  Also that Marjanne would be enabled to follow up this conference with systematic visiting of the schools involved.
 
Joseph