And after the trip …
The first week in Nigeria as you saw in the previous post (The trip …) was quite an adventure - pray with us that the planned training for 2024 that flowed from this visit and discussions will be fruitful to the church and ministries in the north of Nigeria.
Change and growth do not come easy and when you bring culture into the mix it is even more of a journey. The time spent during the second week with 18 leaders from all over the northern part of Nigeria was a next step in our journey together - from an amazing time in the letter to Philemon, discussions around language and culture, to planning for next year …
Translation into Hausa (80 million speakers) as we work through the steps of understanding the Letter to Philemon.
We had lively discussions on how the concepts of form and meaning in language impacts our understanding of a passage and also how different translations can help us in this process. As always the discussions and interactions on culture was a big favourite. We so easily forget how we bring our own culture into the Gospel story and how it can actually then be very difficult for others to understand the truth of the Gospel clearly.
Sharing our cultures
“Biltong” from South Africa was quite a hit with everyone - even when Hillary tried to convince them it is donkey meat so he can have it all for himself.
In the evenings we spent time on feedback, planning and encouraging each other. We kicked off using a new tool to help us keep our focus and measure our progress - it is called the Success Cube™. Through a process of interactions we determined the main Skills, Work rate and Attitudes needed to be successful as facilitators of TWT material. The cube will help us to measure our progress visually and in a very fun way. “Attitude” has definitely become one of our buzzwords.
If you want to know more about the Success Cube™ and how you can use it in your business, ministry, sport or even personally please contact our friend Mark Hosking - hosking.home@gmail.com.
One pastor even admitted that he wanted to give the Cube back to us as he never do planning, but how the Lord changed his heart in this time about planning and through planning making a bigger impact in what God has called him for.
In other news:
We are thanking God for a great training of “Kingdom of God” material with leaders from 20 Nazarene churches in Malawi
Here is Mazima College in Uganda’s latest news letter - CLICK
There will be Kingdom of God course facilitator training in Pretoria in the mornings from 5-9 February 2024 - if you are interested in being trained to train others or just want to see what the course is about please contact me. It is a great discipleship tool!!
Was great to meet an old friend, Kehinde Ojo from IFES on Abuja airport on my way home.
Do you want to contribute to help us serve the church in Africa? Please contact Ivan @ +27827749523 (WhatsApp) or ivan@thewordtransforms.org or CLICK
