After my second overnight flight in as many days, I arrived at JNB Johannesburg airport where I was met by my hosts John and Ruth Kerr. We drove through Kruger National Park on the way up to Zimbabwe. Wild dogs, rhinos, hippos, elephants, monkeys, baboons, lions. The wild dogs made me miss our thoroughly domesticated Reggie and Brady!
We crossed the border into Zimbabwe. In Africa you have to both exit one country (S/A) and then enter the next (Zimbabwe). It's usually chaotic. This was no exception. On the Zimbabwe side they had a Mission Statement, a Statement of Values, and a Vision Statement on the wall. I owed the Zimbabwe guy $75 USD. I gave him $80 and he was unable to make change. I was able to give him the exact amount, although I had to deplete my stash of US one dollar bills to do so. The next gal stamped me into Zimbabwe as January 2011. She wrote over the 1 to make it 2012. Zimbabwe, tear down those mission, vision and value statements!
Entry into Zimbabwe was entry into relative deprivation. The first gas station washroom had no soap or toilet paper and you had to fill a bucket from the sink to flush the toilet. This was a national chain gas station. The Wimpy's take-away had coffee, but no take-away containers to put it in. We provided our own coffee mugs.
Zimbabwe has gone to the US dollar to stop its inflationary slide into the abyss. The US bills get recycled and recycled but never replaced, so they are filthy. I have some with me that I put in a snack bag -- did you know snack bags make excellent bill depositories? I wouldn't think of offering the bills to anyone in Canada/US. I will take to Phoenix and exchange at Wells Fargo. Followed by sanitizing hand wipes all 'round.
From Zim to Zambia. Another border crossing, out, and in. Down to Lusaka. We worshipped on Sunday at the Anglican cathedral. Then on up to Kitwe and the Copperbelt. I met with Mathieu Mufika and was able to give him a box of new French language books to seed his Kolwezi DR Congo theological college library. That's one mission accomplished!
I had 22 students in the apologetics class this year. They all managed to pass the course with a few just squeaking by. English language skills are lacking in many cases.
As a result of this year's efforts, I have the following ideas for next year.
1. Develop a "super-syllabus" that outlines all of my expectations and guidance as an instructor. The super-syllabus will lay out all the expectations I can think of and will serve as a tool to promote improved African student academics.
2. Source out a good, inexpensive reference book in English writing skills and stock the library with 30 copies. I'm thinking Painless Grammar. Does anyone have a better idea?
3. Re-jig the apologetics course to reflect an African orientation. De-emphasize atheistic objections and emphasize specific African challenges. Classical apologetics is a two-step process. First, does God exist, and then, is he revealed in any of the world religions. Evidential apologetics generally starts with the resurrection -- and the strong historical evidences for it -- and goes from there. I still want to cover the classical evidences for the existence of God, but I may move them to the back of the bus!
4. Promote the use of spelling tables to improve student spelling. A spelling table is where students create a table with their mis-spelled words on the left and the corrected spelling on the right. I find that instructors correct spelling in papers but it seems to make absolutely no difference in subsequent submissions. So, this should promote a good academic habit.
That's it for this year. For more photos from Kruger Game Park, go here:
http://gallery.me.com/rkball/100470
