Did you know? 
You are connected to the Mountain of Fire Celebration Centre, a recently planted church in the small village of 
Sensi, Kenya?

who was completing his PhD and thought that his research could be used to advance missions in remote areas by training and discipling via a mobile phone. It was David

who realized this was an important strategic direction and committed the Global Technology Office to lead Campus Crusade in this area. It was Keith

to give leadership to helping get prototype mobile learning courses developed and implemented. It was Jerry

the African leader of the Go North church planting program, who recognized that mLearning could deliver needed training for this project to plant 20,000 churches in Africa.

had joined Jerry’s mLearning team. Mike leads a Bible study group in Orlando in which there is a Kenyan banker

who is also helping plant churches in Kenya. He had helped Nahason Mayaka plant the Mountain of Fire Celebration Centre church. But Nahason lacked basic pastoral training. From Mike, Robinson learned about the Pastors Training in Leadership in a mobile phone which became possible in Kenya when coordinators were identified

and Mark and Karin trained to use mobile phones to train church planters in their country. Kay and I are able to participate in this chain

and your prayers and gifts in response to God at work in and through you.

Kay and I thank you for the critical part you contribute to helping ministry happen around the world!

We should not disparage the former as we are casting vision for a new way to do things. This cartoon says it well (click on the image for a larger view):

I was in a meeting recently where vision was being cast for a new way to train others, and a new way to think about building multiplying groups. The former ways were denigrated as part of promoting a new way.

I’m guilty of this sometimes, so I’m not casting stones. We should remember this cartoon and not denigrate previous efforts as we move forward.

Trash-talking former strategies has no place in leading into the future.

We stand on the shoulders of many that have gone before.

How can we lead into the future without trashing the past?

So started today’s adventure. I got up at 3:45 am. The bus to Nairobi picked us up at 4:45 am as planned. So far, so good.

We got to the airport about 5:45 am. My flight is scheduled for 9 am. The checkin line is nice and short. Only one person ahead of me. Things are going well.

Then I had the conversation with the airline checkin attendant. Things are not going so good, now. She continued, “But I can see it is not your fault. So I will check you in for your flight tomorrow. I will give you a hotel voucher and meals. You can come back tomorrow.”

So, I’m in a nice 5-star hotel in downtown Nairobi.

I have meal vouchers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have internet. It’s a nice place.

But I’m supposed to be in Mali this afternoon. I guess there is work for me to do here in Nairobi today rather than in Mali today.

I’m reminded of a lesson I learned from Henry Brandt: I am going to be in Nairobi today. I have no choice. But I do have a choice about my attitude. I can be in Nairobi as a happy, contented, peaceful person, or I can be in Nairobi as a frustrated, angry person. The choice is mine. But I am going to be in Nairobi.

I decided choose to be contented and at peace because I’m confident God knew I was going to be in Nairobi today. And he has made provision for my attitude through his Holy Spirt.

How do you handle unexpected changes?

Sam had no idea that a bomb-filled car had just entered the church parking lot. After the explosion, he stumbled outside and shook the dust and debris from his clothes.

I asked Sam how he felt after surviving the bomb blast.

Sam is part of the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ in Nigeria. He lives in the city of Jos, where Kay and Iived for many years during our time in Nigeria.

Sam was attending church when a car bomb exploded. This is the church where Kay and I attended for almost 10 years. The church where Kay played the piano. The church where I preached on several occasions. The church where we trained people in the basics of the Christian life, how to share their faith with others, how to follow Jesus closely. This is the church where the pastor cancelled the service one Sunday and the congregation walked 2 miles to the main market and shared Christ with vendors and customers.

I viewed photos of the wreckage. Broken glass, twisted metal, parts of the car that housed the bomb. But the photo that wrenched my heart was a debris-covered pew. Like the pew I sat in for 10 years. Like the pews where I helped serve communion. Like the pews that held people learning how to walk daily in the power of the Holy Spirit and how to introduce their neighbors to Jesus.

I asked Sam about the aftermath of the bomb blast. He said that as people walked out of the rubble and dusted themselves off, a growing awareness spread that the sovereign God who controls everything had spared their lives. The bomber had been thwarted. He couldn’t get into the building. He couldn’t even get very close. He had detonated the bomb far enough away that only one person died, almost everyone had been spared even though the building is severely damaged. Relief spread, but also a sense of being spared for a purpose.

This has been a good day to meet old friends and to make new friends. Especially an old friend whose life was spared.

It made me think: What if next Sunday was my last day? Or what if it was yours?

25 years ago Ethiopia was a closed, Communist nation. Christianity was illegal. Now Ethiopia is open to the gospel and it is spreading like an unquenchable fire. The harvest is plentiful and the laborers, well, not so much.

While we were in Ethiopia, Kay and I had dinner with a Campus Crusade for Christ short-term STINT team. I learned of this exciting video where Seth shared these opening remarks.

Watch and enjoy!

God has chosen now as the time for Ethiopia from Tim Casteel on Vimeo.

Thanks to Tim Casteel for publishing and to Karin Tome for alerting me.

It’s 2:30 in the morning. I’m looking at the drape of white gauze mosquito net illuminated by the security lights outside our building. The buzzing of mosquitos is a safe distance away.

As I’m laying in bed fighting jet-lag, I think of a childhood song “his banner over me is love”.  This mosquito net is like a banner that I’m beneath. I think of the hedge God puts around us to protect us. This mosquito net is like his hedge.

This is what travel to a far part of the globe looks like for the first few nights. Sleeplessness during the night watches. Can’t stay away during the daytime. I’ve learned a lot about helping my body adjust, but jet-lag is a companion of travelers. God doesn’t seem to hedge jet-lag away from us.

I hear my roommate tossing and turning. He flew in from East Asia. He’s fighting jet-lag also. When I room alone, I can turn on the light and read. But I don’t want to disturb my roommate, so I spend this sleepless time looking at the white gauze and listening to the buzz in the room.

And I pray for Betsy.

Betsy was my seatmate for 7 hours flying from Amsterdam to Nairobi. Betsy loves Africa as I do. She lived in Kenya for a year and comes back frequently. She is married to a writer for National Geographic who is in Tanzania doing a story. She runs a wildlife conservation foundation. We talked of our experiences in different parts of Africa.

And we talked of spiritual things. Betsy grew up in a Christian home, but she’s explored most of the world’s major religions. She converted to buddhism a few years ago. She said she loves the beauty of all the religions. We talked of Christ’s claims which seemed to rule out other ways to God. We also talked of the exclusivity claims of Islam and Jewdaism. She was troubled by these but kept talking about how beautiful the religions are.

Betsy’s conservation group teaches monks in Mongolia to care about the earth. She is attending a conference in Kenya to help religious leaders care for the environment. She is very aware of the good that religious leaders can do.

We had a robust conversation, but I felt unable to help her think more critically. I especially wished I could have connected her with the God whose banner over me is love, who cares deeply about his creation, and who cared so much for Betsy that he sent his Son to pay for her sins.

I was not able to get that far with Betsy.

I was encouraged, though, that I was able to have a robust conversation without bruising the fruit of Betsy’s heart. She commented that she hadn’t had such a good conversation about spiritual things in a while. I am glad that I could be the evangelical Christian who could love things about Africa with Betsy and could talk about God without bruising her.

So I pray for Betsy during these night hours.

Kay returned from teaching how to use mobile phones in Ghana and Kenya (click here to read the story). But is mobile a viable platform for discipleship and training?

Here is some good reading on mobile devices. I’ve put some of my favorite quotes beneath each article link.

1. Tablets are starting to impact African education

Africa is the second-largest mobile-phone market in the world behind Asia … Over the past 10 years, the number of mobile connections in Africa grew an average of 30 percent a year, and the report predicted it would reach 735 million people by the end of this year on a continent with about a billion people. [Note: this would be about 70% of the population.]

USAID recently started an education mobile-phone initiative and last year hosted, in Bethesda, Md., the first International Symposium on Mobiles for Education for Development. The initiative aims to improve access to low-cost mobile technologies for education globally.

It’s important not to oversell the use of mobile technology in Africa. While many people in Africa have mobile phones, many aren’t smartphones that can access the Internet, she said. Mobile learning, she said, is not going to take the place of traditional teaching methods. … education with mobile phones in Africa typically involves a student or teacher using his or her own technology and bearing the burden of associated costs, even if those costs are low.

She expects a very low cost tablet to be introduced in the marketplace soon and to explode in Africa. “I know mobile phones are all over Africa, but I’m not sure that’s the right form for education,” she said. “The tablets are great.”

2. Mobiles starting to edge out internet cafes in Africa

Smart mobile phones are slowly edging out internet cafés in Malawi, says a new report.

He said most youths are buying high-tech mobile phones because they want to appear to be ahead of the game in terms of living up to modern trends and fashion.

3. Wikipedia will be available on free mobile access in Africa via Orange

Orange has struck a deal with Wikipedia to make its digital encyclopaedia available free of data charges to millions of mobile phone users across the Middle East and Africa. The mobile phone operator has 70 million customers across Africa and the Middle East.

The ability to access the internet, and websites such as Wikipedia, is currently limited to about 10 million Orange customers who have mobile devices with 2G or 3G capability.

4. Next billion mobile users will come from developing rural areas

Operators can expect to see the next billion mobile connections to come from rural areas in emerging markets, according to analyst Ovum.

5. In 2012, there will be 200 million more mobile users in India

The mobile phone will drive internet use in India in 2012. Computing begins with the mobile and its growth is fast in India.

He believes that the increase in smartphone and internet capable phones, selling below $94 and built by Indian manufacturers, is making it easier and more affordable to own such devices.

The other big change when it comes to India and the internet is how people are using the web. With better connections, mobile phones and computers, Indians are increasingly using the internet for more than just checking their email.

In both rural and urban areas, social networking is a key driver of use. The most popular site in India is now Facebook, which in the past six months saw its user base grow by more than a third.

When I lived in Nigeria in the ’80s and ’90s, few people had a landline telephone. The introduction of  cellphones allowed Africa countries to skip the installation of telephone line infrastructure. I think the growth in smartphones will similarly allow Africans to skip the computer + internet that most of us associate with internet connectivity.

Yes, I think mobile phones, and especially tablets, will allow us to increasingly disciple and train people better than ever before. What about you? In what ways can mobile assist discipleship? In what ways should we be cautious?

Africa, here I come!

Keith drove me to the airport. Then he drove home. I, on the other hand, flew to Accra, Ghana as part of a training team. A few days later, we will fly to Nairobi, Kenya for a second round of training.

We are embarking on the next step in a massive, faith-stretching opportunity. Our Global Technology Team is partnering with the Go North project to train thousands of pastors and church planters to plant thousands of churches across the Sahara Belt of Africa by 2020.

Karin & Kay preparing training materials

The Go North strategy leaders expressed a need. How do we train thousands of pastors and church planters in thousands of towns and villages in a dozen countries? International Leadership University-Kenya had experience in life-transforming training, so they produced Pastors Training in Leadership. The Global Technology Office had an idea: use the most common communications device in Africa today — a mobile phone. Together we developed the solution to the need.

These next weeks will represent the culmination of 2 years of development, testing, planning, and praying. Mobile phone training using ILU-Kenya curriculum has been tested in several locations for 18 months. Pastors tell amazing stories of how their lives and their leadership have been transformed.

Some of the mLearning team

We will train 32 coordinators from 11 countries. In the next few months, 100 to 300 pastors and church planters in each country will be trained. In the following months, we prayerfully expect this training to spread to 20,000 pastors and church planters who will plant 50,000 churches across the Sahara Belt of Africa.

Right where Islam is spreading southward. Right where sectarian violence is growing. Right where people desperately want to know about God’s love and his release from shame and guilt.

So, how does a seasoned missionary and global traveler feel about this next adventure on her own? I am honored to be able to help these leaders learn a new method of training the pastors of their countries. I am excited to be back on the continent of Africa, a place that God has given me a special love for. I feel strange to be leaving Keith behind, but confident in traveling with good friends and co-laborers.

Read co-trainer Karin Tome’s thoughts here.

I re-read this today. “Each step by any (and every) one who ships moves us.” Read it! Then pick something you haven’t released or shipped yet and get it out the door today.

What letter hasn’t been written? What gift hasn’t been sent? What encouragement hasn’t been given?

Renner travelled 56 hours. Selegna was refused a visa to enter Thailand. International travel can be uncertain and frustrating. But Renner and Selegna and 170 others from 32 countries felt God had called them to join us. So they persevered.

Renner wrote: I’m now at the São Paulo International Airport. I spent 5 hours on a flight to be here. I’ll wait 11 hours before flying to Amsterdam. Another 14 hours later, I land in Amsterdam. I wait 9 hours for my next flight. Then 17 hours later, I arrive in Bangkok. Yep, I really need to be with you, guys!

See Selegna’s story.

As I watched the next step in a dream that began in 2005 with the first MinistryNet, my mind filled with David’s question from Psalm 8: 4 “What is man that you are mindful of him?” Overwhelmed by God who is allowing me to see a dream coming true — engaging the power and reach of the internet to help people know him and to grow to be like him.

Our theme “Decisions to Disciples,” focused on new ways to move people forward in their journey to follow Jesus.

One of the unique additions to this MinistryNet was spending two hours each morning in small innovative workgroups. We were seeking to solve a problem or develop an innovative approach to moving people from making a decision, to being a disciple of Jesus. Each group developed a short video to present their proposed solution. The best solutions will receive seed funding to develop a prototype. With MinistryNet less than a week old, three groups are already developing their prototypes.

Imagine the power of 170 people returning home to 32 countries with new strategies, new passions, new relationships with like-minded digital ministry entrepreneurs! This is our dream becoming reality.

You can watch many of the MinistryNet 2011 sessions here. [Note: You will need to create a sign-in using TheKey. It's free.]

Would you like to know more about the diverse projects in internet ministry happening in Campus Crusade for Christ? Visit the MinistryNet Conference Virtual Ministry Fair.

What is your plan to use the opportunities of the internet to deliver the timeless, unchanging message of Christ in fresh, changing ways?