September in Toronto!

Heading to Toronto in September for the first major English Language Ministry training workshop using book 1, "today!" of my new series, Using Everyday English. Carey Jo Johnson, our LEI rep in Canada will be organizing and preparing everything. All Leona and I have to do is to get there! We plan to drive our motorhome across the upper states and park it in the church's parking lot during the training.

Hopefully we'll be visiting churches on the way. Included is a possible visit with our friends, the Woods, who live in Ithica, NY., the Cranks in Cinncinati, and relatives in Tulsa. We'll be looking forward to seeing our "great grandson" Dylan who lives in Broken Arrow, OK.

Thanks for your prayers regarding this long trip...and a first for us in a motorhome.

Requests for 2011 are already coming in: our LEI directors in Malawi, Maxwell Mpinganga and Michael Tetteh in Ghana both want some training using UEE. This is planned around this time next year.

There are also two requests in Mexico, so we will see what God is doing and be as prepared as possible to assist the nationals and missionaries located there.

Coming to the finish line!

Yes! Thank you Lord, Jesus. This is July 1, 2010 and my goal was to complete the last 6 lessons of Using Everyday English (UEE) before the end of June. All I have left to complete is "How to teach a lesson" and the appendices which include charts of the verb tenses, adjective and adverb endings, prefixes and suffixes, etc., and finally, lyrics from the various songs included in the lessons and suggested games which are played during a training workshop.

Now, the big development will be to revise the training DVD to include the new curriculum, and (this is where I really need your prayers!) the production of a 3-D (3 dimensional) phonetic drama that will depict how a person can make the correct sounds of the English letters.

I have found that the two most challenging sounds for new English speakers are: th (both voiced and unvoiced) and the r (gutteral rather than dental). The letters n and l also give various learners trouble.

My goal, which you can continue to pray for me, is to complete this project before the end of this year, 2010.

Thanks for reading this blog. I only wish I had something more to share with you like a YouTube video, etc., but working on curriculum is like watching grass grow!

Blessings to you.

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.