Dear Friends,
Thank you for your ongoing interest in the ministry of CGM. Thanks as well to many of you who are faithful in prayer and faithful in financial support. CGM receives no funding from Moore College to cover the salaries of our team, nor to pay all the costs involved in our ministry such as the many translation projects and the provision of online learning tools. This means that we rely totally on the generosity of God’s people to continue with our ministry. Your generosity means that there are 1000’s of people studying God’s word and maturing in their love and service of Jesus around the world.
CGM – An Overview and Update
This diagram sets out what we do at CGM.
As you can see, CGM has no students of its own, but through our partners many people around the world are studying PTC at very low cost. This is Moore College’s gospel gift!
PARTNERS – establishing and maintaining
PARTNER SURVEY
In November we carried out our (2nd) annual partner survey. This survey helps us understand what issues our partners are encountering as they use our resources. Their responses about the PTC material itself and the way they access it either online or offline, helps us improve our processes and IT tools.
Overall, the feedback was very positive, with our partners reporting a high level of satisfaction and rating the material, our support of them and the IT platform as having high importance for them. For any interested in a more detailed summary of the survey results please contact us.
ENQUIRIES ABOUT PARTNERSHIP
We continue to answer many enquiries from those expressing interest in establishing a new partnership or using our resources. In the past few weeks we have heard from people in India, PNG, Lesotho, Nepal and Kenya. Although we receive many such enquiries, it is often many months until an agreement is signed, if at all. This means that at any one time we are having lengthy conversations, usually by email with many people simultaneously. Please pray that people would not only enquire but would follow through to use the material to study God’s word.
MAINTAINING PARTNERSHIPS
Most of our agreements (Memoranda of Understanding – MOUs) are in place for 3 years. Sometimes the MOUs need to be renewed before the 3 years have finished because the partner’s needs may have changed. For example, a partner may want to start using an online learning platform; or start accessing a new language; or begin a new translation project. Updating agreements is an excellent opportunity to have further discussions with our partners and to see how they can use our resources more effectively. Over the last few months we have been working at updating many of our lapsed or lapsing MOUs – many hours of work.
TRANSLATIONS
We continue to make good progress on a number of translation projects. An update about just a few:
FRENCH
The end of the project is in sight! By the end of this year we are aiming to have all 19 subjects ready for online use.
PORTUGUESE
Our translators in Brazil are making rapid progress and have completed 14 of the 19 subjects, including the notes and the quiz or exam questions. The translators are so efficient that other parts of the process are having trouble keeping up with them.
MALAGASY
The translators have begun the 8th unit of PTC. We currently have 2 units available online and are planning for the first 6 subjects to be online by the end of this year.
TECHNOLOGY
WHAT’S NEW IN THE IT DEPARTMENT
Updates to software always lead to more work! Our online learning platform uses Moodle, a well‑known online learning software. An updated version means hours of work and testing for our IT Team. They are making sure that the integration with our in-house administration module still works and are also preparing new training videos and manuals for our partners.
Marty Olmos, our Educational Technologist is also investigating new ways of delivering our PTC content to students with a basic phone and limited internet access. These students might find the current fully‑featured online service hard to access but would perhaps benefit from a richer, interactive educational experience than the basic paper‑based format. This type of student is a large segment of our partners’ students, so this project could have a large educational impact.
A NEW MOODLE FOR MADAGASCAR
We have reported in previous newsletters about the use of PTC in the Anglican Church of Madagascar, including the use of PTC at St Patrick’s Bible College in the Diocese of Toliara. In the past few months, our team has been preparing for St Patrick’s to have an online learning platform. This will increase the reach of the college and allow students from all over Madagascar to study PTC courses in Malagasy (not all subjects – see above) and French. Pray for our team as they complete this project and that students in Madagascar would make use of this opportunity.
GLOBAL PARTNERS
In this edition we want to introduce you to one of our many partners.
FOCUS ON A PARTNER MINISTRY – JOFC THAILAND
The James O Fraser Centre (JOFC) in Chiang Dao, Thailand is a Discipleship Training Centre which is focused on whole of life discipleship. Their aim is to teach God’s word and disciple men and women, equipping them to reach different people groups with the gospel.
JOFC is run by Jim and Linda McIntosh from Australia. PTC is one of the main elements in the teaching program at JOFC and they have been involved in the translation of two of the PTC subjects into ‘Easy English’. They also have a translation project for Thai and are scoping a new project for the Lisu language, spoken by a people group present in Thailand, and parts of Myanmar, China and India.
JOFC students study in the classroom with a teacher, but complete activities and an exam on the Moodle (online platform). Being online also means that JOFC can offer this course to anyone in Thailand who wishes to study PTC. Pray with the teaching staff at JOFC that PTC would be a blessing for the students at JOFC and also those further afield.
NEW RESOURCES
Work continues on the Bible Basics course that is designed for Oral Preference learners. We will give more information about Bible Basics in a later newsletter.
CGM EVENT
Another ministry that CGM has is the yearly public lecture. Please reserve the date 26 July 2023.
CGM – WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?
We covet your ongoing prayers for our work – that the Lord would be pleased to use our work for the growing of His church and the establishment of His Kingdom.
We would also value your financial help in support of the translation projects. If you wish to give to any of the translation projects, or find out more information about CGM, please go to our website.
Thank you.
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