Contents of this newsletter
| Didasko's 'home' is about to change | The "Miracle House" |
| Course development | Student statistics |
| Great Progress toward blessing all Unreached People Groups (UPGs) | Meanwhile, back at the Mwanis ... |
Note: Previous issues of our personal newsletters are online at www.dasko.org/vblog
Didasko's 'home' is about to change
For the last 10 months, our office has been in a lovely, well-appointed basement below friends' house. We jokingly refer to this nest as the 'Didasko International Headquarters'. That's just kidding, but there is some truth to that - from here we work on more courses, coordinate course development with others, stay in contact with students and their interactions on the online discussion forums, maintain our servers and Google advertisements, and so on.
The "Miracle House"
This is about to change. We've just bought a lovely little house that has an office, and enough space for a studio. We are really eager to move in there on March 13th, as we have a backlog of more than 40 videos that we need to shoot and edit. The contents of these videos have been developed, checked and edited, and are just awaiting the studio to shoot it in. God has been good and has provided a video-making professional who has volunteered to help us set up the lighting and sound in the new studio. What's more is that this house is about 15 minutes drive from our daughter and family. God knows what we need! More about this in the next newsletter ...
Course development
Half of the 40 videos mentioned above are for a new course called Cross Cultural Communication. The course will teach missionaries the ins and outs of communicating clearly the gospel to people of other cultures.The rest of the videos are the first part of another course called Understanding Culture - for the Sake of the Gospel. This course consists of four modules, most in various stages of the development process.
As with all our courses, we use graphics, stories and symbols to help students understand well what we are communicating. The images shown here are part of a series, where our fictional character, Lee, is in an extended discussion with another character, Yussuf, about the gospel. In the image on the left, Yussuf is asking his family what they think of what he has been hearing from Lee. The image on the right is the last of the series, at the point where Lee has explained the gospel fully to Yussuf, who has just seen the light and the love of Christ shines forth from him.
In addition to these two courses, we are in the early stages of a course on spiritual warfare (our struggle against darkness, Ephesians 6:10-17). Parts of this course are being developed by Dr. Don F, and by Martin and Simone S, World Outreach colleagues. Martin and Simone have extensive experience in setting people free from demonic oppression, and are using it in conjunction with church planting among Mus1ims. Another course we have just started planning on is a World Religions Overview course.
Student statistics
We don't want to err like David did when he took the census, but student activity is an indicator for us (and you) as to how Didasko is doing, and helps us lead the ministry into the future. God brings the fruit, for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! (Rom 11:36)
By the grace of God, Didasko Missions Academy has issued more than 620 online certificates. This figure does not include all the people who have completed face-to-face offline courses. A few bible colleges have also done some of the Discovering Missions series courses. One bible college did the Bible and Missions course on a multi-cast to multiple campuses. In 2022, the online training videos that form the core of our courses were played 8,549 times, for a total of 706 hours of viewing time. We are so grateful to be able to help and encourage both potential and new missionaries on their way into reaching those who have never yet heard the good news of God's salvation in Christ. Speaking of them, here's some encouraging news from the wider missions community ...
Great Progress toward blessing all Unreached People Groups (UPGs)
Back in 1980, sixty percent of people lived in ethnic people groups (Greek: ethné) with no believers. More and more Christians started becoming aware that the harvest today is still truly great, but the workers are still few (Matthew 9:37). Just as it was when Jesus said those words 2,000 years ago! This awareness stirred prayer asking the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest (Matthew 9:38). And He has been sending workers for the greatest harvest in history!
By last year (2022), only 25% of humanity lives in ethné with virtually no believers. This despite the fact that the world population has almost doubled since 1980. Believers have grown four-fold - from about 250 million to one billion! And instead of doubling with the population, ethné with no believers shrank to 20%—from 2.5 to two billion people! We are living in one of the most exciting harvest times in history. Many of us don't see this around this, because this growth is mostly happening among the people who formerly had no Christian witness at all. You can read the article this paragraph is based on by clicking here:
Meanwhile, back at the Mwanis ...
Our colleagues Andries & Sunette S, who are still working in Mozambique, have created a new book based on the Bible teachings we adapted and translated for the Mwanis. They are distributing it amongst the Mwanis. We are grateful to hear that our efforts of old are still bearing fruit. May many more Mwanis meet Jesus as a result of these stories!
We honour God for all this, ... "for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever!"(Romans 11:36)