Newsletter 2023 October

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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Dear Friends,

Thank you once again for your support of CGM in various ways: by prayer, advocacy and also by your financial support. Your ongoing interest in CGM is a great encouragement to our partners and also to our team.

GAFCON

In April, our Director, Bishop Malcolm Richards was present at GAFCON IV in Kigali, together with over 1300 delegates from around 50 Countries. GAFCON (the conference) stands for Global Anglican Future Conference. In a time of upheaval in the Anglican Church worldwide where parts of the church are abandoning the authority of the Bible, Gafcon (the movement) aims to promote faithfulness to the gospel as declared in the Scriptures, as well as the proclamation of that gospel to the nations.

The GAFCON conference was a great place to make contacts for the work of CGM, with many delegates present from under‑resourced countries. Through a Moore College presence at a stall in the conference we were able to have conversations with many church leaders interested in accessing PTC resources.

As a result of the GAFCON conference we now have around fifty contacts to follow up.  Please pray for these potential partnerships.

TEACHING IN DR CONGO 

Following the conference in Kigali, Malcolm Richards, our CGM Director, travelled with his wife (Elizabeth Richards from CMS Australia) to DR Congo to visit three Anglican Dioceses. Malcolm and Elizabeth are former missionaries in this part of Congo and have many long‑term relationships there.

For many years they have had the opportunity to teach at clergy conferences in this part of Congo. At the recent clergy conferences in Kindu Diocese and the new Kalima Diocese, Malcolm was able to road‑test teaching that he has been preparing as part of the ‘Bible Basics’ initiative. ‘Bible Basics’ is ministry training material being prepared by CGM for oral preference learners in traditional communities.

Teaching the material in a target community (in Congolese Swahili) is a great help in assessing the model and the material that has been developed in the isolation of the Moore College office.  Please pray for the ongoing development of ‘Bible Basics’.

NEW PARTNERS AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES

CGM continues to receive many enquiries from churches and ministries (often Bible Colleges), interested in accessing the PTC resources. Frequently these discussions with potential partners continue for lengthy periods before an agreement is signed. Often there is no positive outcome for a variety of reasons. It is exciting when a new partnership is established and students start studying the Bible in greater depth through access to our resources.  Here is a snapshot of some of our new partnerships:

Kenya – The Massai Rural Training Centre in the Diocese of Kajiado

This Bible College in rural Kenya is planning to use PTC as the basis for their curriculum. We have offered the material in English as well as Swahili.

Madagascar – Diocese of Toliara

We have reported in previous newsletters that PTC is being used in the Diocese of Toliara in the south of Madagascar and forms the basis of the curriculum at St Patrick’s Bible College. Now the diocese is planning to use PTC in the grass‑roots training of lay ministers in new churches being planted among converts from the traditional ancestor worship religion.

Madagascar – Diocese of Antananarivo

In a new partnership, the Bishop of the Diocese of Antananarivo (in the capital of Madagascar) has just signed an MoU with the aim of using PTC to train lay leaders and evangelists (lay church workers) in his diocese. This is an exciting development, made possible through relationships fostered by Rev Al Lukabyo (Croydon Parish, Sydney), who has been teaching PTC to people from most of the 6 Madagascan dioceses. There is also a possibility that the Bishop will use PTC as part of the curriculum in the diocesan Bible School. These resources are being made available in French and Malagasy (Madagascan language).

Madagascar – Diocese of Antsiranana

In the north of Madagascar, the Diocese of Antsiranana consecrated a new Bishop at the beginning of June. Bishop Jaomandiny has already made a request that a partnership agreement be signed with CGM, so that PTC can be used as part of his lay training program.

DR Congo – Diocese of Goma

The Diocese of Goma in eastern Congo has requested that a partnership agreement be signed (for French and Swahili). The Diocese is also involved in an interdenominational Evangelism Training School called the Lake Kivu Christian Training Centre (CCLK) which has also signed an MoU for the use of PTC in its training.

DR Congo – Diocese of Kindu and the Diocese of Kalima

Agreements have also been prepared at the request of the Dioceses of Kindu and Kalima in the centre of DRC for use in their Bible Schools and also for continuing education for clergy.

Please pray for all of these new partnerships that the Lord would use PTC in the building up of His church and for a growing understanding of the Bible in those studying the Bible through PTC.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES

We have reported briefly in the previous newsletter about the new technology being developed by Marty Olmos, our Educational Technologist. A demo version of this technology in a number of languages was prepared by Marty to show to delegates at the GAFCON Kigali Conference. This took many hours and required Marty to manually develop the platform and build the lessons.

The technology allows students to access PTC on very basic smart phones, mostly without connection to the internet. Based on a WebApp, while connected briefly to the internet a student can download a subject of PTC and then, offline, can study the subject including completing interactive quizzes. The student’s attempts at the quizzes are marked and feedback is given while offline.

As a result of the interest shown in this technology by a number of our partners, Marty has now researched the technology in greater depth with the aim of making whole subjects available in this format. This could have huge potential in areas of the world with limited access to internet (due to cost or availability) but where people have access to very basic smart phones. Please pray for Marty as he works at automating the creation of lessons in this new format using lessons currently available in our online learning platform (Moodle).

CGM EVENT

The annual CGM Event is being held at Moore College and online on 26th July.  This is a public lecture on the subject: “Humility in Mission”.

These public lectures are designed to stimulate those in ministry in Australia and also those in cross‑cultural mission overseas to engage in missiological issues that directly affect them in their work.

In this lecture Dr Simon Gillham, Head of the Department of Mission at Moore College, will help us to think about the Bible’s demand to both develop and practice humility in our lives and in the way that we engage in ministry. Simon will interact with the Bible’s teaching as well as cross‑cultural ministry practice. Following the lecture, a Q&A session will allow those who attend to interact with a panel to discuss these ideas further.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?

Pray

We would love you to pray for our work. Please pray for:

• our Team here at Moore College
• for our partners (see our website which lists most of them)
• for our translation projects
• that the Lord would be pleased to use the work of CGM for the growing of His church and the establishment of His Kingdom.

Give

We would also value your financial help in support of the translation projects. If you wish to give to any of the translation projects please use the button below.

For more information about CGM please go to our website.

Thank you.

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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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Dear Friends,

Thank you for your interest in the Centre for Global Mission (CGM). A big thank you as well to those who have donated funds to CGM in general or to specific translation projects. Without your help, many of these translation projects cannot happen.

In this edition of the CGM Newsletter there is a report on our recent public lecture about oral learners but this edition will mainly focus on PTC translation projects.

WHY TRANSLATE PTC?

PTC is a valuable resource that CGM can make available to under-resourced churches and ministries around the world for little or no cost. Of course, many of these under-resourced churches need training materials in their own languages and so the strategic translation of PTC into other languages enables CGM to meet many more training needs.

There are 19 active translation projects for PTC. We have made significant progress in the last few years in identifying and starting translation projects in the most used languages. However, many of these translation projects are still in the early stages with many more subjects to complete and there are still a number of other languages which we could start to translate if funds were available.

Here are a few updates about some of these projects:​

​​​​​​BIBLE SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA AND ‘PLAIN ENGLISH’

A new partnership has been established this year with The Bible Society of Australia to translate the first subject of PTC into ‘Plain English’. Plain English avoids the use of complex grammatical constructions and is used by the Bible Society within Aboriginal Communities where English is a second language.

Developing a Plain English version is not the end goal but is the first step towards translation of the material into aboriginal languages. There are few theological training resources like PTC available in Aboriginal languages and Bible Society is hopeful that resources like this can be used in the future to lift the theological level of Aboriginal Bible Translation teams.

THAI TRANSLATION PROJECT

Our partner in Thailand, ‘JOFC’ is responsible for the Thai translation. This is a new translation and will go online immediately, as subjects are completed. ‘Introduction to the Bible’ has been completed and in October, JOFC students will commence studying online in Thai for the first time. Two more subjects are expected to be completed soon with others to follow.

บทนำสู่พระคัมภีร์

MALAGASY IN MADAGASCAR

The first six subjects in Malagasy have been in ‘offline’ use for over one year.

PTC is being taught in week-long seminars to a group of twenty-five people that meet several times per year. This group comprises five people from each of the five dioceses in Madagascar (there are six dioceses altogether). It is hoped that these same people will start to teach PTC themselves in their own dioceses.

Our key contact in Madagascar, Rev Berthier Lainirina is the main teacher at these PTC seminars and is now the Principal of St Patrick’s College. PTC in Malagasy now also forms the core of the syllabus for St Patrick’s Bible College in the southern Madagascan Diocese of Toliara.

From January 2023 St Patrick’s will embark on a new project – Malagasy PTC online. St Patrick’s is now the main training college for the majority of the Anglican Church in Madagascar and wants to extend its reach over this very large island by offering PTC online. Madagascar is a very poor country and most rural people do not have access to the internet. However, it is hoped that an online option will help train urban church leaders and future church leaders who do have online access. Our CGM Team is working hard to get the first subjects ready for online use by the new year.

OTHER TRANSLATION NEWS

We also have a team in Japan (CMS missionaries and others) beginning a Japanese translation. Good progress continues on some existing projects such as French, Russian, Portuguese and Swahili.

The technology behind our translation projects has seen some improvements which will lead to greater efficiencies. CGM is now providing templates to assist with the translation process and HTML (web) conversion. Word templates are provided for the translation of the notes and PowerPoint templates are provided for translation of the images. This important work by our team means that the time taken to get new material online is greatly reduced.

Please pray for these and other translation projects. To find out more about translations please go to our website.

EVENT – PUBLIC MISSIOLOGY LECTURE

In July CGM, in conjunction with the Department of Mission, held our annual public missiology lecture. The aim of these yearly events, is to engage Sydney Christians on relevant and helpful missiological issues.

This year the subject was ‘The Written Word in an Oral World’. The speakers were Dr Simon Gillham (MTC Vice Principal) and Bishop Malcolm Richards (CGM Director).

Simon Gillham looked at what the Bible says about itself, a written document designed for a largely illiterate people, while Malcolm Richards looked at what the church has learned about teaching oral preference learners from its history and from the modern missionary movement.

If you missed the event, you can view the two talks and the Q&A session in the video below.

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 growth 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 please visit our website.

Thank you.

 
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Video recording of the night is now available! Please click here.

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The Centre for Global Mission has partnered with North India College of Christian who are translating the PTC into Hindi. Watch this video for more information about the Hindi Translation Project. You can support this project via our donation page.
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