The End...

Well, the end of my journey in Africa (and hence the blog) is here, but I wanted to write one final time to thank you for your support this past year. It is surreal that I only have three days left in Zambia. What has made this year truly beneficial for me is not only that we were able to develop a sustainable program but that I was also able to learn and grow so much in the process.

Teacher Training

At the final tally, we were able to train 32 teachers in our teacher education curriculum this year while also being able to train 2 instructors who will guide the program once I depart. Based upon our rubric scoring of exemplary teaching traits, the teachers in our pilot program were able to make a 46% increase of those traits over the 8 months in which we mentored them. We were also able to note substantive changes in many teaching practices such as increases in experiential learning techniques used.

Back in the USA

It is time to move onto a different phase of my life though. For your information, I will arrive back in the USA next Tuesday, July 27th, and I will be speaking at two churches in Thomaston, GA, on Sunday, August 1st, if you are around and want to hear about my experiences. I will be preaching at New Life Church for the morning service and at First Baptist Church for the evening service. Feel free to contact with me if you want more information about those services. Also, feel free to contact with me when I arrive back in the USA as I will have approximately three weeks before I start school at Duke. During that time, I will be traveling around the Southeast but feel free to email or call me.

Thank you for making this program possible. It has truly been a blessed year, and I thank you so much for your encouragement and support. I truly believe that without your support we would not have been able to accomplish all that we did. Thank you!

Jonathan Hoffner Photography

Do you like the pictures above. Well, I did not take them, but Jonny Hoffner did. Jonny and Michele are my friends who traveled the world and visited me during Christmas. They have finally put their pictures from their trip on their website. You can purchase any of their photos if you click on their store, or you can just view their really cool photography.

http://www.jonathanhoffnerphotography.com/fineart.html

Take a look. You may find something you like.

A Glimmer of Hope

Sickness is apart of Africa. It seems like every other day someone is not at work because they are sick. Recently, two of my good friends were diagnosed with malaria. I can comprehensively say that I never want to get malaria. Luckily, I have yet to be sick while in Zambia. I have a week to go, and I am knocking on wood like it is my job

From my experience here, I can say that there are many depressing things such as sickness and poverty that you encounter daily. The amazing thing though is that right next to the depressing situations there are also glimmers of hope. For example, while sickness is prevalent in the communities in which we work, there is also hope in the water projects the Jubilee Centre is starting because by bringing clean water we are able to fight water-borne diseases like cholera.

When telling the story of Africa, you have to tell both sides of the story. There are some amazingly sad situations, but there are also glimmers of hope. All is not lost.

On the funny side of life, two members of a team from the UK recently developed allergic reactions after they ate caterpillars for the first time. They were able to laugh about their sickness which is good because I was definitely laughing at them. I don’t think that they are going to need to worry about that allergy when they get back to the UK. “Excuse me, are there caterpillars in this dish?” Imagine if you asked a waiter that. Try it next time you are out to eat.

Dr. Chiluba I Pressume

Yesterday, my friend, Dan Weber, and I were sitting at a meeting at our favorite coffee shop when who decides to show up but the former president of Zambia, Dr. Chiluba. We did not recognize him, but we realized that he was someone important because he had body guards and drove a Mercedes.

As Chiluba was leaving, a Zambian told us who he was. Immediately, Dan and I ran after him with our camera to get a picture. After we talked to his body guards, Chiluba got out of the car to take a picture with us (we presume it was because we are white.) Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, the man is short! I had to lean down to put my arm around his shoulder which makes the experience all the better.

For a little history lesson, Chiluba stole around $75 million dollars from Zambia but was acquitted of the charges last August before I arrived in Zambia. There was major disappointment regarding his acquittal because Chiluba's reign was notorious for corruption. His wife was convicted of stealing money from the Zambia government, and there still is a civil suit in England against him for stealing $57 million from a secret Zambian account. I say $75 million, but no one really knows how much was taken.

To say that he is hated/disliked by some Zambians would be an understatement (the Zambians we were with refused to get their picture taken with him.) But his party is still in power; therefore, they will probably try to shut down my blog in the next couple of days. I just wanted the picture because I thought it would be funny to stand next to him...

Why I Love the Jubilee Centre

Someone recently asked me, "Why do you love working at the Jubilee Centre?" Therefore, I decided to write a blog detailing not only why I think the Jubilee Centre is a great organization, but also why I believe I was able to be successful this past year. Without further ado, here are my four reasons...

1. The Chance to Start Something New: The Jubilee Centre (Lawrence Temfwe) believed in me even when I did not believe in myself. Yes, Lawrence and I saw a vision for this education program, but in reality we had no idea what it would look like. Even though we saw a need and a vision that could meet that need, who is going to trust a 24 year old with that vision?

Lawrence gave me the freedom to run with the vision, but let’s be honest that was a risky decision in many ways. The Jubilee Centre is an established network, but Lawrence had the audacity to allow me to start something new. Not many organizations would allow that to happen.

2. Relationships: Relationships are the most important thing in Zambia. I would not have been able to start something new as quickly as I did without the relationships of the Jubilee Centre. JC has deep connections in the communities in which they work. I was given instant credibility in the communities because I worked for the Jubilee Centre. It would have taken me at least a year to form relationships deep enough to start a new program. But the Jubilee Centre had already built those relationships; therefore, I was able to hit the ground running.

3. Indigenous Leadership: I believe very strongly in the power of indigenous leadership. I think that there are specific areas that outside leadership can be very useful. At the same time, I love the fact that there are only two Westerners working at the Jubilee Centre at the moment. Yes, it can create some very interesting working situations, but over the long haul, I believe that indigenous leadership is needed.

4. Strategic Location: The main reason that I love working for the Jubilee Centre is that I believe it is in a very strategic location. I don’t know of many churches, organizations, or people in the West who could work effectively with the people in the compounds. Because of cultural differences, etc., I believe that it is very hard for a Western church to partner directly with a church in the compounds. I believe that these partnership can and should take place, but I think they are very difficult to form.

Given that situation, I believe that the Jubilee Centre is in a strategic location to help form these sorts of partnerships. In terms of examples, think of Jubilee Centre like a power convertor. The voltage from the American church comes in at 220 volts to the Jubilee Centre, and they help form the partnership with the compound church by reducing that voltage to 110 volts. Then, the Jubilee Centre also performs the opposite transformation by increasing the voltage.

In conclusion, I just don’t think that the compound churches and the Western churches speak the same language (literally and figuratively). The Jubilee Centre facilitates so that the churches can work effectively together while both groups benefit. To put it bluntly, the Jubilee Centre reaches where white people can’t while also having access to resources and credibility.

Mapalo Data

Sorry that the chart is so small (click on it to make it bigger), but this is a chart measuring the impact of the Jubilee Centre Teacher Training Program on each of the teachers in the pilot program. We rate our teachers on 12 skills that we believe make exemplary teachers in Zambia. We gauge their skill ratings based upon a rubric that was developed. In each of the skills, the teachers can be rated as novice, beginning proficient, proficient, or exemplary. A point value is assigned to each rating with an exemplary rating being worth 10 points. On a 120 point scale our teachers, on average, made a 17.8 point increase on the rubric which is representative of a 46% change.

Some people connect better with stories of teachers appreciating the training and changing their practice while others want substantive data. I am here to provide both for you. (There is also a graph of each teacher's progression for the visual learners.) For full disclosure, we have taken parts of this rating system from other sources. It is not our original design, but we have modified a lot of things to fit our situation in Zambia.

Who Is the Jubilee Centre?

If you ever wondered what the Jubilee Centre staff looked like, here is your chance. The other people in the picture around the table are my family, and the other white guy in the middle is a guy named Dan Weber who has worked for the Jubilee Centre for the past four months. There is also a picture of the Jubilee Centre with their families at a picnic and a picture of the Temfwes and I. Enjoy!

New People and New Training Sessions

With the months of June and July come a new group of people to Zambia: the summer missions teams. You see them all over town, and they are so easy to pick out. This summer we have two such teams at the Jubilee Centre. One group is from Wheaton College in Chicago, of which I am an alumni, and the other group is from a church in England called Holy Trinity Evangelical Church. The Holy Trinity group arrives today and stays for two weeks, but the Wheaton College team is working with the Jubilee Centre for two months.

I love observing these groups because I have been in their situation many times before. The first weeks of your trip you are constantly questioning, “What I am doing in this strange land? What do these people at the Jubilee Centre think that they are doing?” Though the students may not say it, the questions are written on their faces. I do love the student’s questions about poverty and the way the church should deal with these situations here. I also love when the students experience something that rocks their world. It is hard to see an orphan for the first time. Even if you have a cold heart, I am confident that talking to an HIV/AIDS patient or an orphan will affect you. Those are the difficult issues that you have to wrestle with when you come to work with the Jubilee Centre, but our goal is to help people process those experiences and what it means for them.

Part of my job for June and July has turned to helping coordinate the activities of these groups so that they can experience the ministries of the Jubilee Centre. For example, last week the Wheaton College group taught in one of the community schools in Mapalo. I trained briefly them before they started teaching, but the overwhelming response from the group members was that teaching is a lot harder than they expected. Spending time with the Wheaton team also allows me the opportunity to tell all of my Wheaton stories. After my story times, they probably think I was some sort of heathen who only goofed off at Wheaton. That conclusion is probably an accurate one...

In regards to teacher training, we just finished a training session for another community school in Mapalo. For this session, I just supervised as Emmanuel and Samson, my two instructors, ran the entire training. It has been very fulfilling to watch them take over the training sessions. I think the program is in very good hands as I prepare to leave Zambia. Over the next couple of weeks, there are still things that I need to do to ensure that the program is on firm footing when I leave, but I am very confident in the future of the program. I have attached two pictures of Samson, the one with his eyes closed, and Emmanuel, the one standing behind me in the yellow shirt, so that you will have an idea of who will be running the program once I leave.