Making Connections

Working as a Com Team is all about building connections. Last week Pamela was once again out 'on location' at a church missions fair where, together with staff members from the Muizenberg base, she promoted the work of YWAM in Africa. She took the opportunity to use the promotional materials published by the International Communication Network based in Colorado Springs, USA, showing short videos and giving out many brochures. This gave her the chance to chat with many of the interesed people, to answer their questions and to seek to connect them with our work around the continent.

This week Evelien is the one out of the office. She has joined about 200 staff from YWAM South Africa at their staff conference, being held close to Kruger Park (they are camping so we hope they are safe from the lions!). Evelien will be promoting the School of Field Journalism and the CRIT consultation next year. Since we are hoping to see a regional Com Team emerge for southern Africa in the near future, both of these will be strategic opportunities for potential communicators from this region ... so we hope that Evelien gets the message through, above the roars of the animals at Kruger!

Photographic Fundraising

It makes sense to use the skills we have to raise finances and Martial has been taking this seriously. Over the last weeks he and his wife Lea have been working hard to prepare for a photographic exhibition. In fact most of the team have been involved: Tim made frames, Pam helped to set up the venue, Evelien served drinks at the opening night and Miranda acted as the MC. Held at a local coffee shop, Martial has framed several of his best shots taken in various locations around the world over the past half dozen years. Lea also created postcards and greeting cards of the prints for sale.

The opening night was a great success, with many visitors gathering at the coffee shop for a drink and to peruse the photos. Mounted with short descriptions of the story behind the shot, guests also enjoyed hearing from Martial as he described the context of some of the photographs. The exhibition runs for the next week and we are looking forward to hearing that many sales have been made: well done Martial!

Provision for Teaching Trips

Over the last weeks we have been looking ahead towards a couple of trips and praying like crazy that financial provision would miraculously arrive. One of the great privileges of being a Com Team is the opportunity we have to connect with YWAM teams around our region of the world and wherever possible to visit them to offer teaching, to research stories, to shoot video clips or to support them in other 'communication-related' ways.

In October Martial has been invited to teach for a week on the School of Communication Foundations being run in Kigali, Rwanda. This is a key opportunity for us to partner with others working in communication training and this school is the result of a special link between the team in Burtigny, Switzerland, and the team in Kigali. It is a wonderful opportunity for Martial to build connections in YWAM East Africa where we will be holding the Field Assignment phase of our School of Field Journalism.

In December Evelien and Miranda will be traveling to Lichinga, Mozambique where they will be teaching for one week on the Foundational Leadership School on communication and administration.

It really is a challenge to finance trips such as these, much as we love to visit the bases. We do have a few supporters who are committed to sending donations to AfriCom and these monies usually cover our monthly overheads such as rent and electricity. Traveling around Africa is expensive - especially in places like Mozambique where flights inside the country are not open to much competition - and most often we fund these flights through our personal support. This is not ideal and we would prefer to build up our level of regular financial support so that we can more easily budget for these expenses. YWAM Com Teams are not centrally funded and each is responsible for generating finances for their work.

Anyway, having worried, prayed, trusted and prayed some more we felt led to send a gift to another YWAMer just getting started in communication ministry. We knew the principle of generosity should be at the centre of our journey of trust for our own finances, not as a formula but to demonstrate a heart attitude. Shortly after we did this we received two large donations that have together provided for the upcoming trips: hooray! Tbis is wonderful news: celebrate with us!

Minding the technological Gap

Yesterday I received the email pasted below. It is from a YWAM staff member working on the Buvuma Islands of Lake Victoria in Uganda, East Africa. She is writing about the move to change YWAM's international magazine from a print edition to an e-zine. I post this here because Catherine sums up one of the reasons why we need Communication Teams in places like Africa:

"Thank you for all your hard work on the new YWAM E-Zine magazine. I know it has taken tremendous effort. I therefore offer my contribution with extreme care because I don't want to discourage you. But the truth is you are not reaching as many people as you think. I know for a fact that most of the staff of YWAM Uganda do not have Internet access and the speed of our connection certainly does not allow us to view your magazine. So we are all out of the picture, again! We had an HIV & AIDS global gathering in 2006 but the only way to attend was to apply on-line. Very few of the staff had registered so finally a lady from UK who is on staff printed out a bunch of application forms and gave them to people. After they filled them out she just gave the whole lot to the organizers in person. And the whole idea of doing Go Manual surveys on the Internet is a constant source of frustration to us.

There are also many YWAM locations that do not have electricity. For instance we live on a remote island on Lake Victoria in Uganda. It has been a month since I was able to do emails and it requires a trip to stay overnight (and I have three small children).

I appreciate that Lyn Green wants to focus on healing the nervous system of YWAM. That is really needed. However, I don't feel the Internet is the best route for the majority of the YWAM staff in the field. I know printed media is expensive but it was the best way to make sure all the staff read the YWAMer magazine here. The National Office just left copies in the waiting area of the office and people read them. Now hardly anyone can read the computerized one."

In our capacity as bridge-builders we have to face issues such as these ... to find funds to print a magazine and post it to YWAMers in Africa; to phone people and fill in their YWAM surveys for them; to tell YWAM around the world the challenges staff deal with on a daily basis, as well as their triumphs and success stories. What a privilege to do this for people like Catherine!

College of Communication gathering

Last week we were able to participate in the meetings of the College of Communication, one of the faculties of YWAM's University of the Nations. The meetings were hosted in Kona, Hawaii, at the main U of N campus, and with the help of video conferencing 11 other locations were able to take part.

We were included in these meetings by virtue of the fact that we are now not only a YWAM Communication Team but also U of N school leaders. We felt very much like the new kids on the block, given that we have yet to actually graduate any students, but this gathering was the ideal opportunity for us to be introduced to some of the movers and shakers in the College of Communication.

There are YWAM communication schools running all around the world, in locations as far apart as Australia and Sweden, Hawaii and South Korea, Nigeria and India. In these U of N accredited schools, both small and large, students can train in general subjects such as Communication Foundations, or specialised subjects such as Digital Film-Making. We are proud to add Field Journalism to that list!

The gathering will become an annual affair as the college leadership team seek to bring greater connection to the different expressions of the college around the world. If this sounds familiar that's because it's yet another response to God's word to us as a mission to work towards greater health throughout our organisational body by promoting better communication.

And that, dear readers, is why we are here!

Trip to Uganda & Rwanda: Update

Evelien writes:
The first two weeks of August Tim, Henk (who works with DTS at YWAM Muizenberg) and I travelled to Uganda and Rwanda. Our mission: Tim was invited to teach at the DTS in Arua (Uganda) and in Kigali (Rwanda). We also spent two nights in Jinja (Uganda), for an interview with Sam Kisolo, the national leader, and to talk about the Communication Consultation that will take place in Jinja in April 2009.

For me it was great to discover a new part of Africa by travelling around by bus; we spent hours travelling from one place to another. I certainly enjoyed the views of nature and African life. And if you are looking for banana paradise, you can find it in Uganda and Rwanda!

It was great to connect with the different YWAM bases, to see how they live, and to get to know staff and students a little bit better. It was really encouraging to see the involvement of the bases in Arua and Kigali in the community.

In Kigali, Rwanda, the YWAM team is doing some amazing work in the local community: a primary school, vocational training, projects with widows, HIV-AIDS, ex prostitutes, orphanages and many more ministries.

Of course we communicated about communication! Good communication makes a difference. Having so many different ministries in the local community also means having lots of stories and testimonies. But how can we make sure all these stories will get ‘out there’? There is such a need for communicators. Communicating these stories, about what God is doing in Africa, will make a difference! Come and do the School of Field Journalism in January 2009!

Communication tools

Internet is a great communication tool. However, travelling throughout Africa shows that access to internet is not as common as it is in other parts of the world. Even though there is internet available in Africa, there are lots of places where the connection is very poor. It can easily take half an hour to read 2-3 emails. In some places the YWAM staff members have to travel to an internet café first to check their email. Thinking about “My Facebook” in rural areas? Sounds nice, but you can forget about it.

For us as AfriCom and everyone who wants to work on better communication, this means that we need to think of different ways to communicate with our YWAM family in Africa.

YWAM offers Medical Students Outreach Opportunities in Africa

A group of university students gathered together last week at the Tygerberg medical campus, in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, for a week-long mission conference. There were 18 different Christian organizations exhibiting, sharing and presenting their work. YWAM Africa's work was represented, along with All Nations, MAF, Doctors Without Borders, Open Doors, Mercy Ships, Life Winds, SIM and others. Floyd Mc Clung, director of All Nations, and Brian Sanders, from Underground Network church in the US, were the guest speakers.

AfriCom's Pam Kudiwa was glad to spend her birthday week behind the YWAM stand. “In the midst of the diversity of ministries I could see a beautiful portrait of what God is doing across Africa, painted by different brushes but inspired by One. Standing beside our YWAM Africa stand my mind could not help but think of how much creative freedom there is to network as organizations that are working for the same cause. This networking resulted in me collecting many ministry pamphlets, and holding conversations that did not just end with 'What is DTS' but with questions about what other organizations are doing and how we can partner together.”

Besides their busy schedules, filled with studies and hospital work, an impressive number of students passed through the missions stands seeking for more ways to get involved in the world around them. Medical students whose passion is to pursue God's purposes showed their willingness to take time to do short term outreaches, and others just browsed for information. One group of medical students - whose only free time is in two months tim- are giving up their chance for a holiday to have a mission adventure with YWAM in Mozambique. They heard about the opportunity to cross the Zambezi River to bring medical supplies to an isolated village and jumped at the chance: “Can you please find out if we can go in October and November? We will organize our own transport and whatever else it will need for us to get there” Conrad said.

What a privilege to be a Communication Team for YWAM's work when there are so many willing volunteers just waiting to be informed and mobilized!