Around the World with ISMT

MEXICO

Ruly and Mayna Cruz, second generation BCM missionaries in Mexico’s Chiapas territory, (Mayna is daughter of BCM Mexico missionaries Manuel and Lidia Dominguez; see key-note article Patience+Persistence) had taught teachers training courses before. But this time was different because other evangelical denominations from the area had been invited.

“God moved the hearts of the pastors, and we had more than 20 people in the training from other churches,” Ruly and Mayna share. “They were very impressed with the material and the classes. They are now working more effectively in their churches and want to have another teachers training.”

But what really excites the Cruzes in that a young man, Harold, from their own church took the training. God used those sessions to confirm the Lord's  call  in his heart to serve Him as a missionary. Not only did he help in BCM Mexico’s winter camp last December, but he is now  getting ready to go to Peru to study at BCM Peru`s Bible institute.

PERU

From Peru, BCM missionaries Carlos and Marion Odicio send exciting feedback from their recent In Step with the Master Teacher training courses:

• A lady who was in one of their workshops stood up after the last session. “I am a certified school teacher, and have taught school for over 20 years,” she told the group. “The 5 years that I studied in university preparing for my secular career have not prepared me for my job as a Sunday School teacher the way ISMT has. I am very thankful.”
• An area pastor organized a workshop to which he invited 20 churches in the northern part of Lima. After the closing session, he got up to express what he himself had learned about the value of ministry to children. “I spend most of my ministry time preparing to preach to and counsel  adults, trying to make straight what has been bent. If these adults had been taught right when they were kids, maybe I would be able now to spend my energy on motivating them to witness and to be involved in missions.”
• A 14 year old boy who comes to BCM Peru camps every year and is a helper in his church Bible Club approached Marion Odicio at camp, excitedly asking, “Is it true you are going to be in my church this Sunday to teach on how to be Sunday School teacher? I want to be there but they told me I am too little.”

“I guess we have some ways to go changing attitudes and Develop a Biblical Attitude [one of ISMT’s core values], don’t we?” finishes Marion. “It just shows how very needed this course is.”

THE NETHERLANDS

“Just not my cup of tea!” was BCM Netherlands missionary Rianne Tijman’s opinion of children’s ministry. She’d taught Bible lessons to children a couple of times. “But these were not the best of experiences, to say the least!”

But after 7 years of BCM ministry, Rianne’s opinion began to change. “Through my work within BCM-Holland, I had been asked to check the already translated Dutch version of the Teacher Training material with the final English version. And so I started reading. While reading, God was working in my heart!”

Rianne found herself increasingly enthusiastic about children’s work. She came to realize that the main reason for her past experiences and how she felt about them was due to a lack of coaching/training. “So I thought maybe I could do it after all. Or maybe not, but at least I would know it after having been taught, and not by being thrown into the deep.”

Rianne asked one of her fellow club workers to train her. “Actually, I demanded it of him,” she admits. This past year she began teaching Bible clubs and within a couple of months discovered she was enjoying it more she could have imagined.

“And so I have seen the importance of training people, whether it be in working with children, teens or adults,” concludes Rianne. “God used my weakness and revealed His strength through me. God taught me not to lean on past experiences, but to look forward to where He is leading. I guess I can say I am a living testimony that, with a heart for children and for God, a desire to teach and a willingness to learn, God can do amazing things and He will do the exceedingly abundant, above we can ever ask or imagine.

INDONESIA

It’s Saturday evening, and the electricity is finally on in Sentani, Irian Jaya, after a 7 hour shut-down. Sylvia Wright, BCM teacher trainer in this largest and eastern-most province of Indonesia, wonders if maybe they’re on some kind of rotational schedule as the power company tries to fix some major problems. But with her latest In Step With The Master Teacher training seminar finished, she’s glad to be able to print off the 30 completion certificates needed for church leaders to hand out, along with a new Bible, to trainees at the graduation seminar.

Life as a BCM teacher trainer in Irian Jaya never lacks adventure. Students come from tribal groups scattered all over the island. Getting to a training seminar may simply require walking over to the local Bible School facility. Or it may involve a Cessna flight into the interior or sliding precariously down a muddy jungle trail. The slower pace of teaching through a translator for one of the many tribal languages makes covering all the material a challenge. The tropical humidity of Irian Jaya’s rain forest habitat can make staying awake through hot afternoon sessions as difficult for Sylvia as her students.

But the rewards are far greater than the challenges. Those 30 certificates printed out despite the eccentricities of the local power grid represented at least five tribal groups from all over the island. A recent training course into the interior brought together Bible School teachers, pastors, the head of the district churches, youth leaders, Sunday School teachers and women’s ministry leaders from tribal churches as far as two hours’ walk.

“There was even an 11-year-old girl who attended all the classes rather than go outside and play with friends,” shares Sylvia. “All participated faithfully even during afternoon sessions when a nap just seemed the thing that should be happening.”

Because of the language hurdle when working with interior tribal peoples, whether she’s teaching directly in Indonesian or using a translator, Sylvia always arranges her lesson plans to teach the core material during the morning hours. In the afternoon sessions, she allows time for students to go over the material together in their own tribal language, including someone with good Indonesian language skills in each group to help explain anything the other students might not have understood during the morning presentations.

During a February session among the Ngalum tribe, the final lesson was on ‘Leading a Child to Christ’, a lesson that illustrates reasons children respond to a Gospel invitation, as well as how teachers should NOT push children’s reasonings off as unimportant if they haven’t come at that moment to accept Christ as Savior. On the last day of training, Sylvia had forgotten to give the group time to work together as she usually did. When she remembered, one of the Ngalum leaders announced thankfully, “Oh, good, I NEED to go over this with them. We face this all the time. This is so important for us.”

“With that she took off at full speed in her Ngalum language,” Sylvia remembers with delight. “Meanwhile, I packed up rejoicing that God was meeting them through the ‘In Step’ material and that I’d had the privilege of sharing it with them. Paul in Ephesians calls it grace: ‘To me this grace was given, to preach . . . the unsearchable riches of Christ.”(Eph. 3:8).

That’s adventure!

ENGLAND

“Each time I teach ISMT, I’m encouraged because the material is so good and practical,” says Barb VanValkenburg, BCM England. “And that I have a tool that can help people reach out to others. I just wish I’d had some of this training when I was starting out some 40 years ago.

Even after years of teaching children, as I have prepared some of the sessions, it has helped me in my own teaching.”

SRI LANKA

Nestled among the tea plantations of the highlands, Pusselawa is home to the first of BCM’s churches in Sri Lanka This February, Pusselawa also hosted BCM’s Asia Pacific Train the Trainer as Asian bloc leaders from as far afield as India, Nepal, Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Philippines as well as Sri Lanka came together for a week of training.

Teacher trainers Esther Zimmerman, BCM’s International Director of Children’s Ministries, and Bob Barber, BCM Director of Central Eastern Europe, along with VP of BCM International Ministries, Dr. Vararuchi Dalavai, had joined together with these Asian leaders to share a vision for BCM children’s ministry in Asia and to prepare key leaders in using In Step with the Master Teacher to multiply ministry to children in their countries.

“It was a tremendous time of worship, fellowship and challenge,” expresses Esther Zimmerman, “as we considered the needs of 2.2 billion children around the world.”

God is already doing a tremendous work through BCM in Asia. Mr. Yesurajan of India shared that every week over 89,000 children in Tamil Nadu alone are hearing the word of God taught in BCM Bible clubs. The 90+ BCM churches in the Philippines shared about the children’s programs each is running in their neighborhoods. One pastor alone in Greater Manila is reaching 200 children in an outreach among ‘squatters’ (landless families forced to build homes, often no more than temporary shacks of scrap wood, tin, or cardboard, on any vacant lot they can find). In Indonesia, Rev. Made Markus, representing Indonesia at the conference, shared of 200 children enrolled in the Compassion International project his neighborhood church is sponsoring.

And yet, the needs of 2.2 billion are enormous. BCM’s vision is to harness the potential of multiplication to reach children on our fields.

“The church needs children,” Pastor Robbin Vaidya from Nepal stated emphatically. “Without children there is no church.”

Each leader has committed upon returning to his country to begin using In Step with the Master Teacher to train other believers to minister to children. And they aren’t waiting around! Rev. Doddy Prasadja of Indonesia advertised his first training last week. He writes, “The response was unbelievable! Since I announced that seminar last Sunday in local churches, I got 93 names from 11 churches in Central Java Province. Can you imagine how great it will be, if we can proclaim In Step with the Master Teacher inter-denominationally to the churches across Java? Halleluiah!”

India and Philippines will hold their first In Step with the Master Teacher trainings this month also. Please pray that God will richly bless these trainings and multiplying ministry to the children of Asia.

USA

From New York, Bob Emmett, camp director of BCM’s Camp Mandaville, reports the camp’s first Children’s Ministry Training and Resource Day on Saturday October 7th, 2006, using In Step With The Master Teacher curriculum.  Eighteen participants attended representing 6 different churches from Northern NY communities.  Pat Black and Stacey Everline from the International Ministry Center helped to coordinate and teach some of the workshops.  

“We had very good interaction between presenters and participants and plenty of available teacher/training materials at the two resource tables,” Bob says. “We praise God for the great success!”

Comments reported by these children's ministry workers offer a good description of their experience:

• "I would love to experience the whole training."
• "Helped me to correct something I do wrong.  I was very impressed with this and helped me a great deal!"
• "Thank You!   It was clear and usable."
• "Perfect workshop for anyone who's never taught before but would like to!  Great workshop to recruit new teachers!   As effective for 'veteran' teachers!"
• "Very effectively communicated."

Camp Mandaville staff are so enthused by this initial turnout and the expressed desire for more teacher training, they are hosting a second Children's Ministry Training Day, offering four additional workshops, on Saturday March 31st.  “Please pray for us,” they ask, “and for the far-reaching impact of this teacher training ministry.

CANADA

From Canada, BCM Missionary Fay Johnson shares how she recently caught the vision of of a solid teacher training curriculum tool as she began to use ISMT.

“If you are passionate about developing your teaching skills, then pouring what you have learned into the lives of others, In Step with the Master Teacher may be the right fit for you. Possibilities are endless. It can be used by missionaries or lay people alike. Everything comes in a convenient,   concise format. Teachers find it refreshing to have new ideas, combined with tried and true methods. For myself, In Step with the Master Teacher has brought me back to encouraging volunteer teachers, which I love to do. It is my heart’s desire to enable others to teach so that many children will grow in Spirit and in Truth. Children are so valuable to God and teaching them to know, love and obey God is important”