By the grace of God, Didasko Missions Academy is growing

We are looking back with deep gratitude to the birth of a God-given dream—Didasko Missions Academy. A few months after we launched our Discovering Missions series in 2019, COVID pushed everything online and by God’s grace, we were ready. Students from around the world began signing up, and by the time the world opened up again, Didasko was firmly established.

Since our launch, Didasko has continued to grow—bringing both new opportunities and new challenges. Below are just a few key statistics that show Didasko’s current status.

  • At present, we offer 12 courses, of which 4 have been done in collaboration with other ministries. More courses are being developed.
  • These courses combined have a total of 359 videos in addition to various learning activities and exams.
  • Our videos have been viewed over 54,000 times in total, with the highest engagement coming from Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa, the US and Kenya.
  • We’ve had graduates from 70+ countries.
  • Our facilitators have led at least 42 face-to-face courses since 2020. These have been held in South Africa, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Lesotho, Botswana, Indonesia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand and the US.

Didasko's real impact

You might think: Statistics are great, but what is Didasko’s real impact? Well, we have so many testimonies from students telling us how they gained new understanding, clarified their calling, and being better equipped for their roles in the Kingdom. Here are a few...

  • One Nigerian student was able to work out a strategy plan for reaching out to an Unreached People Group (UPG) in Nigeria by applying the principles he learned from our Fruitful Practices course. 
  • A family in South Africa started reaching out to Pakistani Muslims in their neighborhood after doing our Missions101 course. 
  • A group of very effective church planters in India are now fully funded—from within India—after doing our Fundraising course.
  • A group of students from the Sudan and Somalia did our Bible and Missions and Missions101 courses in Kenya, and some of them went back to Sudan—a very dangerous place to be a missionary—and have already led some Muslims to the Lord.

Don's story

Dr Don Fisher is one of our course developers and is actively promoting Didasko wherever he goes. He and his wife, Nellie, recently went to a missions conference in South Korea. Just read his rendition of their travels...

"We had one heavy and one light suitcase. The people at the airport wanted to charge $100 for overweight, so we repacked on the floor of the airport. The 500 Didasko tri-fold brochures were taken out of the boxes and spread around the light suitcase. That equalized the weights and avoided the overcharge.

However, the thick layer of brochures tripped off an alarm in Seoul. We had to go through the secondary customs inspection. The extra time spent in customs made us late for our connecting flight which was at another airport. However, the staff put us on a later flight with no extra charge.

Praise the Lord we arrived at our hotel after a 45 minute ride with a taxi driver who couldn't speak or read English."

GACX

A few weeks ago, we went to the GACX conference - Global Alliance for Church Multiplication - held in North Carolina. It was wonderful, because it felt a bit like our regular World Outreach retreats - people from many tongues, tribes and nations coming together to give praise of what God is doing. This network is heavily focused on partnerships and we made a lot of good connections. Our objective for attending is to help Didasko become better known among mission agencies so that they'll ask their new missionaries to do our courses.

I, Betsy, attended a women’s breakfast one morning where everyone had to introduce themselves. As soon as I mentioned that I’m with Didasko, a woman across the table let out a little shout: “You’re from Didasko?” At first, I assumed she must be confusing us with another organization, but she quickly assured me she wasn’t. She went on to share a testimony of meeting Dr. Don and his wife, Nellie, at a conference in Malta earlier this year. Not only had they spoken with her about Didasko, but they had also prayed with her. She said their love and compassion deeply touched her heart.

Before I knew it, she was asking for pamphlets—and then enthusiastically handing them out to every woman at the table. I simply sat back and enjoyed the moment, amazed at the unexpected excitement and interest in Didasko. We give God all the praise for this wonderful, unexpected exposure.

Blessed Christmas

We will be remembering Jesus's birth in a few weeks. What a blessing and privilege to be called children of God (1 John 3:1)! We are praying for all of you, that everything may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your souls (3 John 1:2).