CHRISTIAN EDUCATION INITIATIVE – AUGUST 2005
Teacher Impact:
How will this course make a difference in your teaching?
- Before
we taught without instilling a consciousness of God in our students,
now it’s clear that the child needs this more than all the knowledge
of the world.
- Seeing
my students as made in the image of God will change the way I relate
to them.
-
I recognize
now that God reveals Himself through His creation.
(As I teach about the created things around us, I can use
them to point my students to their Creator.)
-
I recognize
that Christian teaching is an opportunity to train disciples for
Jesus Christ.
-
Christian
teaching can be an opportunity for evangelism.
DEBRIEFING AND PLANNING WITH OUR THE TEAM AND LOCAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE
Evaluation by Ben Hegeman
The teachers in this workshop are quick to pick up the material and show eagerness, interest, humour and zeal. They love teaching and love what Jim is feeding them.
Prayer: Dear Lord, this was a fabulous beginning and one that wonderfully disturbed the worldview of these teachers for your kingdom. Cause these brothers and sisters who teach in a world of drought, famine, poverty and Islam to dare to believe you to transform their culture through their being spiritual thermostats rather than cultural thermometers.
What shall we share with the churches in the Open House night?
How can we best help the vision to spread?
What about follow up to encourage the teachers who are being set on fire by this course?
Will it be possible
to offer Course 2 next year as well as a repeat of Course 1?
As SIM Director, Gordon Evans led a Question & Answer session.
Q. If we wanted to start a Christian School how could we get started?
A. Prayer ++; Send your teachers to these courses; Start simply with a Kindergarten (Brigitte Pini is returning in January to be a resource person for kindergartens); Network with SIM to donor agencies for further expansion.
Q. Can’t school education just be neutral?
A. (powerfully by Ben) There is no such thing as “value free” education. In Niger you have three types: French (secular, pagan values); Koranic (Islam), Christian (Biblical values). Which do you want for your child?
Would you like to contribute financially to this important work? Fund can be sent to SIM, earmarked for:
Niger General Education: a Christian Perspective - Project #97422
SIM USA
Box 7900, Charlotte, NC
28241-7900
(704) 588-4300
SIM
Canada
10 Huntingdale Blvd.,
Scarborough, ON M1W 2S5
(416) 497-2424
Would you join us in realizing these faith goals through prayer?
1. By faith we see God releasing Nigerien men and women with a burden and vision for Christian education to lead the churches into active commitment and involvement.
2. By faith we see God raising up an army of young people with the vision to give themselves to being trained as teachers and administrators for Christian Schools. By faith we see them being equipped with a passion to train children to know and love their Creator God.
3. By faith we see the teachers and churches being used by God to start a chain of quality Christian Schools that will stretch across the length and breadth of Niger.
4. By faith we see God providing two qualified, French speaking Teacher Educators with experience in Christian worldview education to found and head up the envisioned Christian Teacher Training College.
5. By faith we see the Jim Vreugdenhil team returning in September 06 along with a co-team to teach two levels of the Christian Teacher training courses.
6. By faith we see funds for this Education vision pouring in from God’s people around the world.
Is anything too hard for the Lord? Do not be afraid…For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out My Spirit on your children and My blessing on your descendants.
Gen. 18:14; Isa 44:3
What if God’s plan is to change Niger through the transformation of children by training them to know, love and serve their Creator God through means of Christian schools multiplied across the land?
INSIDE THE CLASSROOM….
Ben Hegeman’s inside observations: Jim is a veteran teacher. He speaks calmly, smiles with his eyes, pauses often, walks around the class, illustrates constantly with stories or object lessons, uses overheads where everyone reads Scripture aloud together.
Jim has a grab-bag full of group exercises to both promote discussion and to get them to know each other. He tells them to make groups inside as well as outside the class. Group posters are explained to the class and then attached to the walls as ongoing object lessons.
Using Reclaiming the Future of Christian Education by Albert Greene as textbook, Jim emphasizes:
1. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
2. Truth is a Person, Jesus Christ, who is pleased to reveal God to us through the various aspects of creation.
3. The facts taught in schooling are not neutral but motivational.
4. They are to lead the student to a deepening awe for the Creator, to thanks, love and service to Him.
We thank the Lord for the dedicated, enthusiastic Education Team that He sent in August to begin to train Christian teachers how to teach from a Christian perspective.
Professor Jim Vreugdenhil and his wife Christine joined us from Canada. Jim has been in Christian School Education for 40 years, the last of which he was the Director of Christian Schools in Ontario.
Dr. Ben Hegeman, seminary professor and missionary to Benin on home assignment, came from the U.S. to help with the teaching and translation into French.
And Brigitte Pini, trained kindergarten teacher, children’s worker, missionary to Niger on home assignment returned from Switzerland to help facilitate the c
lasses as well as promote the vision for Christian kindergartens as the first step in starting Christian Schools.
The two week teacher training in Niamey was a tremendous success and blessing with 26 enthusiastic teachers in attendance. In Maradi, 16 teachers enrolled for the course and showed themselves to be keenly involved.