Dear Friends,
Thank you for your partnership with the Centre for Global Mission. Our CGM team continues to work hard to see Bible-based resources made available to a growing number of partners around the world. In this newsletter we would like to introduce you to two of our partners and also update you about some exciting developments in PTC translation.
Meet some CGM Partners
Anglican Training Institute, Diocese of Sabah*
Until the end of WW2, the Church of England in Borneo (now East Malaysia) was Anglo-Catholic in tradition and catered mainly for the British expatriate community. In 1953, Howard Mowll, Archbishop of Sydney, travelled to British Borneo for a visit. (Archbishop Mowll had previously been a missionary bishop in western China and had a continuing passion for mission in Asia.) During that visit, the English Bishop of Borneo asked CMS Australia, through Archbishop Mowll, to send missionaries to Borneo.
The first CMS missionaries, Walter and Camille Newmarch, left for Borneo in 1954. Many CMS missionaries followed.
As CMS Missionaries were sent to Sabah, they needed resources to disciple new Christians and emerging leaders and they naturally turned to PTC.
From the beginning of the CMS presence in Sabah, PTC was used by many missionaries as they went about their work – usually in an informal way – although in time, some students in Sabah were formally enrolled through Moore College. PTC was a relatively new course in Sydney at the time, having been developed in the 1940’s as a course to train lay leaders in Sydney.
Many years later as a vision was developed to train lay leaders and to identify future clergy, PTC was identified as a key resource by leaders in the Diocese of Sabah. Rev Canon Dr Khee Vun Lin, now Principal of the Anglican Training Institute (ATI) in Kota Kinabalu formalized an agreement between the Diocese of Sabah and Moore College in 2012. This allowed The Diocese of Sabah to use PTC as a core part of their curriculum in their training college. As part of this work, large amounts of the PTC has been translated into Bahasa Melayu (Malay) and Chinese.
The Anglican Training Institute remains a key partner with CGM. All students at ATI, whether studying at certificate, diploma or degree level are required to study core units of PTC as foundational courses.
* This story was told at the Diocese of Sydney Synod’s ‘Mission Hour’, 2023.
The Anglican Diocese of Mauritius
The Republic of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean is made up of Mauritius Island and several smaller islands, including the largest of these, the island of Rodrigues. Originally uninhabited, the island of Mauritius was owned in colonial times at various times by the Portuguese, Dutch, French and finally by the English from 1810 following the Napoleonic wars. The majority of the population are descendants of indentured farm labourers from the subcontinent and hence the dominant religion is Hindu. While English is the language of administration and French is also used, the vast majority speak Mauritian Creole (a French creole) as their first language.
The Anglican Diocese of Mauritius is a key CGM partner. The PTC program is based in the parish of St Paul’s in the capital, Port Louis, and is led by the Senior Minister, Archdeacon Eric MaFat. Eric has a long connection with Moore College, having completed the one year Diploma at Moore in 2010. Currently Eric is the Vicar of St Paul’s and the diocesan Archdeacon. He also oversees training in the Diocese. St Paul’s is the largest church in the Diocese with regular attendance over 800 people.
PTC is a major discipling strategy to equip lay people in the parish and now also in the whole diocese. Once students have completed 12 subjects they are encouraged to become teachers or tutors in the program. This helps them to consolidate their learning and to develop ministry skills.
When PTC was introduced at St Paul’s, everything was paper based, with PTC books being shipped over from Australia. Since 2020, with the development of CGM’s online learning tools for partners, the PTC program at St Paul’s has gone online and is offered in both English and French. Over 300 students have studied at least 1 PTC course with many having studied multiple courses over the years.
Wednesday night is PTC night at St Paul’s. All the tutoring is done online. In a recent email, Eric gave this encouraging report:
“Currently we have about 100 students enrolled for Ephesians. Most of them come from my parish, but a few also come from other parishes. For the first time we have 10 students from the Island of Rodrigues. We also have a few from Canada, Singapore and even one from Seychelles. We also have one from the Catholic Church. Some of the students have enrolled to study in French using the French translation.”
CGM has around 35 partner organisations working in over 50 countries. Details about some of our partners can be found on our website.
Please pray for The Diocese of Sabah and the Diocese of Mauritius.
Translation News – PTC in Portugese
It can take many years to translate all of PTC into another language. In most cases, reaching the goal of all 19 subjects in the language will never happen. This is because it is expensive to hire professionals and many translation projects rely on volunteers. Our partner, MOCLAM, has managed to do this in Spanish and we have almost completed French after many years.
However, we now have a new translation record for PTC!! All 19 subjects of PTC have been translated into Portuguese in only 2 years. Having acquired funding, we commissioned a team of professional Christian translators in Brazil and they have worked tirelessly to complete the project. We thank God for this great team and also for our Christian friend who paid for all this work.
It’s not quite ready for use! The Brazilian translation team worked so quickly that our CGM translation project manager (Lynn) has not been able to keep up. She has to do some final work, along with our IT team, so that the material will be ready for use in both online and offline formats.
This is an exciting new resource for the Portuguese speaking world (9 countries – look it up!). The church in Mozambique has already shown some interest in PTC Portuguese.
Please pray that God would connect us with partners who want to use the Portuguese PTC resources.
Thank you
We value your prayers for us and our partners. Check out our website and learn more about the ministry of CGM and our gospel partners. Please consider partnering with us in prayer and also by financial support of one of the exciting new translation projects
Thank you.
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