Planeta Rica, Colombia, training workshop

The first week in December, Kent Davy and I traveled to Planeta Rica, Cordova state, Colombia, South America for a one-week English teacher training workshop. Liceth Oyolo Gamboa has been teaching a basic English class in a Christian school, and wanted to train other teachers as an outreach of her church, La Iglesia del Divino Salvador (Church of the Divine Savior).



There were 7 teachers and about a dozen students, all but one,
under the age of 30! What fun! They were enthusiastic, energetic and full of it....

Though it was hot (their summer) we were able to communicate both methodology and content from my new English book, Using Everyday English.

We played games--Zip-Zap, Elephant, It's a what? and sang songs: The Hokey Pokey, He has the whole world in His hands.

Here in this picture, students are demonstrating the need to blow air for the letters H, P, T, etc. Using a tissue, they hold it close to their mouth and pronounce the word. If the tissue puffs out, then they've placed their mouth in the correct position.

Liceth and her finance, Fabian. And notice that fab T-shirt with the "Carlsbad, CA" logo. How smart.

Here are the teachers with their certificates in the sanctuary of the church.
Alba, Jeimmy (Jaimie), Kent, Reuben, Don, Liceth, Neivies, Erica.
Fabulous teachers - bright, intuitive and creative.

Teachers and most of the students.
Liceth also gave out certificates from the church to her students.

These students are part of the youth ministry of the church and other local association churches in Planeta Rica. The "kids" are a tight group that spends lots of hours together because they play instruments in the worship team, or sing on the worship team, lead Sunday School classes, etc.


Kent and I were housed in a very comfortable home. Our hostess was Afredina. Kent and I must have added several inches to our waistline.

We would eat a meal, then the gang would come over and take us out to some friends home to celebrate their birthday party (more snacks!) or out to their favorite haunt...an ice cream parlor.

We are so blessed by all their love and graciousness. To know that the family of God is doing so well in this rural city of 37,000 is such a joy to my heart.

You have to experience God's love through your brothers and sisters to truly appreciate the definition of "God's Family."

Leona just reminded me that I should put a quick note on our blog so that those of you who access our blog can also link to Daniele & Andrew Vuksic and their Gospel on the Go Ministries. When we were there in the summer of 2008 we helped them move into their new home and had a wonderful time with them knowing how God was going to grow their new congregation. We feel close to their ministry and want you to share in our joy, too. So, check it out.

Through God's grace 250 books of Using Everyday English have been printed. Michael Tetteh in Ghana was able to print these for distribution (for sale) to the people who attended the English Language Ministry Training Institute in Abokobi, Ghana.

Give glory to God for this first incredible step to the advancement of His Kingdom through English classes with Bible stories.

I'm excited about this...and I hope you are, too.

Today was a wonderful day for worship and hearing God's Word preached well. Afterward, Gregory Bangura, LEI's West Africa director and president of Rabboni Ministries (West Africa) and I had lunch with pastors Brad & Rene Roth from our church. Our discussion was about the future possibility of drilling fresh water wells in Sierra Leone and Liberia in the near future. We would covet your prayers for this needy and urgent evangelistic outreach. Fresh water, let me remind you, is a wonderful opening for a whole community. To invite them for water and renewed health, it also becomes a way of inviting them to learn how to read their mother tongue. In our LEI primers, there are stories from the Bible, so literacy then becomes the avenue to share the Good News of Jesus our Lord and Savior. Then, in addition, many who are educated desperately ask for English and that's where I come in!

We want to train teachers and trainers to train teachers throughout all of West and East Africa. Today was just the beginning of this grand, divine adventure.

Gregory Bangura working away on his computer in our diningroom.

The Ghana English Language Ministry teacher training institute began August 31st with 14 trainees. Today is September 10th and we have completed 2 weeks of training. Here's what the content of the training - the first week I trained them on how to use the book...Using Everyday English "Today!" English learners arrived on Wednesday and very good progress was made in spite of the quality of English spoken by the teachers! I think they learned as much, if not more, than the learners. The second week I let the teachers role play a teacher-training workshop. On Wednesday new teacher-trainees arrived along with our learners, and for 2 days now, we have been training the trainees to teach. This is because when these teachers return home, they must train their teachers on how to teach UEE.

We played three games: zip-zap (a get acquainted game); "It's a what?" for learning some basic objects, and tic-tac-toe for identifying the names of objects. Then we sang the "Hokey Pokey" which was a great hit.

One additional game I played was "the maze". Here's a picture of Charles being directed through the maze as a student tells him to "go straight 3 steps," "turn left," "take 2 steps", etc.



Here is the class that graduated today and will leave for their home towns tonight.


Thank you for your prayers. My flight home will be next Tuesday, the 16th. I will be speaking again at a Presbyterian church this Sunday morning. Will catch you up on news after I return home. Here's what to pray for regarding Using Everyday English -
1. West Africa desperately needs a video training DVD.
2. UEE needs an audio of the oral portions;
3. Teachers need a phonetic video so they can produce certain sounds they don't have in their own language.

Thank you for your continued prayer support for this exciting ministry.

Time to update everyone on what's coming. On August 27th I'll be leaving for Accra, Ghana for a 2-week English language training institute. The goal is to have the 17+ participants learn 1) how to use the new English curriculum, Using Everyday English, and 2) how to teach other teachers to use it when they return home.


This is really the first time this has been attempted (by me, that is!), so I've outlined both weeks the best I could. This is pretty critical training institute in that my goal is to reproduce trainers before I get too old to travel anywhere! And the need for trainers is crucial to keep this unique language ministry expanding.


I've tried to upload a picture of the cover of the new English curriculum, but this blog either doesn't like PDF files. So, you'll have to trust me when I tell you that the first book, Today! is completed and past "field-testing." Book 2: Yesterday! is still in a field-test condition for a few more months until I'm satisfied that it is effective. And the 3rd book, Tomorrow! is only partially finished.


* Do pray for my 2-week training in Ghana; it's critical I believe for the West Africa ministry.


* Pray as I spend time completing the 3rd book of the Using Everyday English series; and as missionaries and nationals use it in their ministries


* Pray for Daniel Awolou from Benin, West Africa as he applies for a visa to come to the US for 3 months. He will live with Leona and me and will spend large amounts of time working on his English skills, particularly his oral skills, so he can work with English-speaking primer teams in West Africa. We're considering mid-March of 2010.


* Pray for my training workshop (one week) in Planeta Rica, Colombia, So. America the first week in December. Pray for Kent Davy to join me for this trip.

This is what I look like in front of my computer for way too many hours per week!!!

Blessings...

After one month, here is a current update from brother Charles Udoh who I spent one week after the Abidjan International Literacy Training Institute. He lives in San Pedro about a 5+ hour minibus ride from Abidjan. His email to me today says, "We have started two classes here in San Pedro and everything is going well with great enthusiasm from the learners...Rev. Bangura's wife (Agnes) is organising a tutor training workshop the last week in July and hopefully my wife will be there." He concludes, "...my son was very excited about seeing his picture on the net. He's going about telling everyone who cares to listen that the whole world know[s] him courtesy of tonton le blanc (uncle whiteman)."

The host of the Cote d'Ivoire training institute was Rev. Gregory Bangura (center). I'm on the right, and one of our formost primer construction missionaries, Daniel Awolou (left)
stand with Gregory and me. Daniel is from Benin, a French speaking country, and hopefully, he will spend upwards of 3 months with me here in the States improving his English skills. This is very important since he currently is limited to helping primer construction teams that only speak French. In order to assist English speaking teams in English speaking countries, he needs this accelerated jump-start.
Daniel is a very faithful and humble servant of our Lord and it is a privledge to know him better and have him in my home next year.

In May, I went to Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in West Africa to train some nationals from 8 different West African nations. Included were Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo, Burkino Faso, Benin, Ivory Coast and Nigeria - 25 people in all. For one week in hot humid conditions, I trained the English speakers (Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone) and had the French speakers as English learners. We had lots of fun playing games, singing songs, and drilling various conversations, letter sounds and Bible stories. Many came up to me afterward to tell me how effective my new curriculum book was in actually helping an English learner use English rather than just learn it.
I also discovered several corrections needed and hopefully, the revised version will be ready for the English Language Ministry Training Institute in Accra, Ghana in early September. Thanks for praying about the details that need to be completed!

Hi everyone! Yep, I'm trying to move into the 21st century with my blog. I hope you will look at my news every now and then to keep updated on what God is doing through the English Language Ministry of Literacy & Evangelism International.