From young student to seasoned missionary
We got to know "Arn" (real name withheld for security reasons) as a young student at a Nations training course we presented in Kenya in 2014. He is an IT graduate, but God put the nations on his heart. He was determined to become a missionary among Ms1m's. At the graduation event, Henry had a long talk with his parents, who were concerned about their son, who was giving up his training and future career in IT to go somewhere potentially dangerous, living in faith, and far away from his family. Henry managed to quell their concerns a bit, and helped them see the privilege this young man had of becoming an ambassador for Christ in places where He was not known.
After the course, we kept in loose contact with Arn. We followed his journey, and prayed for him when he relocated to a Ms1m country in North Africa, and rejoiced when he got married. Just a few weeks ago, to our absolute delight, we heard from Arn again via Dr Don Fisher, one of our course developers. While representing Didasko at a conference in the Middle East & North Africa region (MENA), he met Arn who was attending the conference. Arn is now a seasoned missionary ministering among Ms1ms, with his wife and children. What a blessing it is for us to have had a small part in building into Arn's life.
The highs and lows of a 'balanced' life
Somebody once said that 'balance' means to go to all extremes equally!! :-) So, we have been living a pretty 'balanced' life the past few months. Here are some highs and lows:
Internet low
We have had intermittent Internet since October last year. It been driving us absolutely nuts, and tested our patience to the limit. Most of our work is online, and having your keyboard freeze for 30 seconds every 2-3 minutes due to internet loss is very distracting, to say the least. You forget what you were working on, while trying to figure out when you're back online. Interactive internet sites often get confused and you have to re-login, etc. We tried all kinds of solutions; we had technicians come out a number of times, and many of you prayed diligently for a solution. We'll not bore you with all the things we tried! Finally, we had to make the decision to go back to the previous Internet Service Provider (ISP) we had, giving up fiber internet for cable. This is a bit like giving up a Ferrari to drive a Toyota Corolla. But the slower, consistent internet is far better than fast but intermittent internet. So this low has become a high!
Upgrade low
Recently we were able to contract a company to perform a long-overdue upgrade to our Learning Management System (LMS). The LMS is key to our ministry, because it's what all our courses run on. We had been way behind in upgrades, due to lack of expertise, cost- and time factors. We needed a huge amount of money to get the updates done, but God came through and a supporter donated the whole sum. So, this is all good!
Why is this issue under a 'Low' heading? Well, with upgrades come problems, and we had more than our fair share of issues to deal with during and after the upgrade. The biggest problem was the new way the software handles Discussion Forums for students. Discussions with peers is one of the most important ways adults learn, so we have many points of discussions in our courses. And they are very popular, people participate a lot.
So we had to edit ALL our courses to change the setting for every single Discussion Forum! There are hundreds of them - and with the intermittent internet we were almost in tears a few times. We still have to do course re-runs to finally solve the issue, but we are getting there. The situation is kind of under control and should be resolved soon. Please pray for a lasting solution!
DBS Highs
We did another Discovery Bible Study (DBS) training at our local church (Collision Church). If you're wondering why the church has such a strange name, our motto explains it all: Where brokenness meets grace. Hence 'collision'. The church recently intentionally relocated to the poorest and most drug-ridden part of the city, because that's where many of those we want to minister to live. It feels a bit like the mission field again! We are training as many people we can in the DBS technique, as it empowers more people to help reach the lost in that area.
Every time we do a DBS training, we are just always amazed at how God speaks to people. And when we see the lights come on in their eyes, oh, the satisfaction we get from helping people with this simple tool to help them get going in ministry, or help them to become more effective.
One lady told us that she had always wanted to start a Bible study group, but never knew how to go about it. After the course, she felt confident enough to initiate a Bible study group for unmarried and newly-wed women. And every time we present a training, we learn something new ourselves! Then we tweak some things, and the next training is better.
Promotional high
It's always difficult for us to promote Didasko Missions Academy; somehow it just feels that it would be more convincing if someone else recommends it rather than we ourselves! Even though we do run some Google Ads, it seems that the most effective promotion has been "word of mouth" - students telling others of their positive experience. So it was a real high for us when we heard this week that someone had written something really good about Didasko on a widely-spread missionary newsletter called Brigada. Some people have commented on this article favourably. If you have a few seconds, please read about it here: brigada.org/2025/03/16_42594/comment-page-1. Also look at the comments. Definitely a high for us!
Wildlife highs
We are from Africa, where lions, zebras and rhinos freely roam the streets, right? Wrong! We have to go to parks to see wildlife, except if you live in the Cape area, then you might see baboons being helped across the road:
We now live in the suburbs of Columbus in Ohio. Our neighbourhood consists of small plots with houses tightly next to each other. We do not live in the woods. But we have the privilege that our house sits next to a small municipal pond with some trees on the other side. Now, here is the funny part: We see more wildlife from our house than we ever saw in South Africa (that is, outside of the wildlife parks). The pond often has 20 or more geese and ducks on it, and we have a lonely blue Heron most days slowly strutting around the pond. Sometimes a deer and her fawn would walk slowly on the road between the parked cars! Yes, true! But the best experience we had was a few days ago when we had seven deer frolicking outside our kitchen window. They were chasing each other, and some of them displayed the behaviour of playful dogs. We were so stunned, we forgot to take a video.
Plans for rest of the year
We are still working on 'online-ifying' a huge course on reaching Ms1ms that was made available to us - for free. This course, called Encountering the world of Is1m, is usually presented in person. At some point, they made videos of the teachings, and those videos were given to us to adapt for an online course. Having lived in a Ms1m community for 10 years in Africa, and then 11 years in a Ms1m country in Asia, we know that this course is going to be a game changer for people ministering to Ms1ms. It is an extensive course, with missionaries and Ms1m Background Believers (MBBs) doing the teachings. This course will not only be beneficial for missionaries who are focusing on Ms1m ministry, but for anybody who may be contemplating long-term cross-cultural ministry.
We are also working on two other courses at the same time: our Understanding Culture - for the sake of the gospel course, and Hearing God's Voice course.
Prayer
We were recently talking to a friend whose son has taken the prodigal road. She so beautifully said: "I know he is not walking with Jesus at the moment, but Jesus is walking with him". WOW! What faith and trust in our God! Please pray for this particular prodigal and for all the prodigals in your families, so that they will see Jesus walking with them, and find 'home' again. The fasting month of Ramadan is also almost finished - keep on praying that God will reveal Himself to people who are far from Him.