Building Globally

The SOFJ is in full swing! Eleven students representing nine nations have come together to dive into the field of journalism and share hearts and visions for communication in Africa.
Here are two of the inspiring stories that brought students to this course:

Emmanuel
Petauke, Zambia
DTS 2006 in Zambia

Admiring a number of the BBC correspondents, such as former Focus on Africa editor Robin White and columnist Steven Sacker, Emmanuel was inspired to become a journalist through contemplating the genocide in Rwanda and realizing media's influence. He says, "I would like to acquire all the necessary skills for front-line reporting. I feel like doing it from those areas that are hard hit by war or natural disaster."
As the first to move out of Zambia, he is supported by a proud family who expect great things.

Marie
Boras, Sweden

Born and raised in Sweden, Marie (pictured above with desk-mate, Lydia) joined YWAM in 2004. After her DTS she staffed several schools in Australia and led Discipleship Training Schools.
Following her heart for writing, a recommendation from a South African friend and a stirring for Africa, she came to the school to gain practical skills and learn more about the African countries that have interested her for so long. Marie says the most challenging part of the school will be putting everything into practice that will be learned during the three month lecture phase.

Other students include:
Solomon, Nigeria; Rivka, Venezuela; Micah, United States; Cristian,Argentina; Darcie, United States; Xesha, Zimbabwe; Lydia, South Africa; Nicolas, Nigeria and Agnes, Uganda.


--
Darcie Nolan

Building team around communication

One of the highlights of Week 1 of the SOFJ was the team-building events. Bec Gibbons, from the EuroCom team, happened to be in Cape Town for a few days on vacation and she agreed to come and facilitate some activities with her friend, Linda. It was great to get the school off to a good start and to observe the different communication and interaction styles of staff and students.

We have 8 different nationalities represented on the school, which makes for some interesting cross-cultural communication! The team-building times provided a safe environment for some of these differences to show themselves, and an opportunity to process together. Sometimes the classroom might not feel quite so safe, so this was great.

Not only do we have a new student body, but our staff team needs to bond too. Five of our school staff have worked together as part of AfriCom but four are new to the team. Bec and Linda spent an afternoon with us as staff and we had a lot of fun, observing our differences and commonalities.

Relating well is all about communication!

School of Field Journalism begins!

Today saw the official opening of the School of Field Journalism that we are running as part of the Communication faculty of the University of the Nations. We welcome 10 students from places as diverse as Venezuela, Sweden, Zimbabwe and Nigeria.

As part of our first day of vision casting for the school, we were thrilled to have Landa Cope join us. Landa is the founding Dean of the College of Communication and she was instrumental in designing curriculum for the original School of Journalism. It was great to hear from 'the horse's mouth' how this training program came into being and how she sees its future.

Landa will be with us this week teaching on '360 degree thinking'. It will be a challenging week of recognizing how little objective or biblical Truth we can claim to know - about the world or about ourselves - but it will be a rich week of learning and processing. She is also with us next week to continue teaching on issues relating to a biblical worldview.

For those readers who would like to support us in prayer, we have a special request: in Week 3 of the school we hope to host Veronica Schaab who pioneered the School of Journalism in Argentina. Although it will be very strategic for her to be part of our training program, both she and us are struggling to raise the finances for her plane ticket. Please pray for financial provision - thanks!

Partnering with the School of Communication Foundations

In the middle of October Martial spent some time in Rwanda. It's a little overdue, but here's his version of events:

"The first aim of the trip to YWAM Kigali was to teach for a week on their first School of Communication Foundations(SCF). The school was designed to equip students with public-speaking skills and the writing of research papers. At the end of the 12 weeks students should be able to complete a 15 page research paper on an Unreached People Group(UPG) of their choice. They need to write on three 'spheres' as they relate to that particular group of people. The first sphere is family, with the student choosing two others spheres on which to focus their research. They will also research the worldview of this UPG.

I was invited by Susi Shar, the school leader from YWAM Burtigny, Switzerland. YWAM Burtigny has long had a focus on communication teaching and more recently they have decided to develop training partnerships with YWAM bases in Africa - which is good news for us! My topic for the week was "General Research Paper Writing" and I was asked to bring a biblical perspective to the subject. To be able to teach on research, I had to do my homework, my own research paper! After some weeks of preparing, I was able to pile some information into my 'internal hard drive' by doing a thorough research project on UPGs, gathering some information to be able to better help the students. If I was to teach the students how to write a thesis and a hypothesis and to support those with the strongest argument in an essay, I would have to give them some practical hints; it took me some solid preparation time.

The teaching went well, according to the feedback I received from students and staff. The only thing I struggled with was addressing a group mix genders and constantly referring to them as 'guys' which offended some the girls! Don't forget, I learned English all over the world ... I guess I picked up 'guys' from my American friends :-)"

We are hoping to continue to develop more training partnerships with YWAM centers like the one in Burtigny, Switzerland. In this way we hope to develop more communicators to help us serve YWAM's work across Africa.

Guest Blog - Debra Buenting from YWAM's International Communication Network

Miranda and I have been in meetings this week as part of an ad-hock YWAM Global Communication Team. We are working to advise and lead YWAM in issues surrounding communication in our mission. Miranda invited me to submit a guest post to her blog, so I welcome the opportunity to briefly consider communication with you.

The word communication comes from the Latin word, "communis." By looking at other words that come from the root, we get an insight into what communication really is. Common, communion, communicable, commitment, committee, community.

Communication is the primary means we have for connecting with others, for creating and maintaining relationships. We have at our disposal complex forms of language (which includes both spoken and written), as well as the language of gestures, facial and other physical expressions, non-verbal vocal sounds, and as our choices in clothes, cars, art, furnishings and many other things that reflect our unique personalities and communicate who we are.

In the beginning God spoke the world into existence. Just as God communicated and the world came into being, so we create realities when we communicate. As communication scholar Quentin Schultze (2000) wrote in his brilliant book, Communicating For Life: Christian Stewardship in Community and Media, “When we communicate, we create, maintain, and even change shared ways of life…Every time we communicate we creatively exercise God’s gifts by contributing good or bad practices of culture.”

It is helpful to view communication as THE tool for building relationships. The Bible is a record of God relating with individuals and societies and them relating with Him. It is often called God’s love letter because it is a primary tool we have for learning what He is like and how He relates to us.

We know that Jesus was a great communicator. He was unimpressed with the power structures of His day by those who used communication to dominate and conquer. Jesus demonstrated alternative a lifestyle as He loved those that society considered unlovely. He touched. He spoke words of forgiveness and healing. He encouraged. He gave up power to model servanthood. And instead of writing systematic volumes of theology or trying to implement His ideas through religious or political power structures, He told parables. Parables are nothing more than compelling stories that rely on indirect communication to share ideas and facilitate redemption.

Jesus used the technologies available to him during His time on earth. Remember when we took the boat a little way out so He could address the crowd? He was using the water as His megaphone to amplify His voice.

Jesus healed people’s bodies and spirits. When He healed the deaf and dumb, He was also healing their ability to communicate in a culture that made it difficult for people with physical challenges.

God created you to be a communicator. When you do it well, you are being who God made you to be and are helping redeeming a central element of the universe.

Blessings, Debra Buenting

I can't say it any better

I (Miranda) am at the Global Communication Team meetings in Harpenden, UK, this week. I will post more in the next couple of days about what this team is all about and some of the issues we are discussing.

In the meantime, do check out this post from a friend currently in Zimbabwe. She summarises some of the communication challenges for people working in a country in crisis such as this. Remember: we still have YWAM staff working in Zimbabwe!

EuroCom meets in the Netherlands

This week Martial has returned to Cape Town from Kigali, where he was teaching on the School of Communication Foundations ... more from him in a little while. In the meantime, Miranda has been attending meetings at YWAM Heidebeek in the Netherlands. People from the International Communication Network have come over from the States to be with YWAM communicators from all over Europe to discuss the ongoing development of EuroCom, the communication team for YWAM Europe. She writes:

EuroCom came together 3 years ago, starting from a very different point to the one AfriCom experienced 3 years before that. Whereas we started with a core team in one location and now have the challenge of building the network around the continent, they started with a group of communicators located in different parts of Europe and now need to create a core team that can coordinate a common communication strategy for the whole field. This week's meetings have been crucial because Jeff Fountain, the Field Director for this part of the world, is transitioning out of his role in the next 12 months and we want to have EuroCom in a solid place before the next director is in post.

The discussions started out a little 'murky', as is often the case in situations where a number of different players with different perspectives first come together. But as we worked through the agenda we found some clarity. One of our main goals was to develop greater understanding between the communicators and the leadership and in this it was very helpful to have those from ICN bring their perspective and paint the bigger picture of YWAM's communication strategy. It helped for me to describe the journey AfriCom has been on since 2002 and to highlight the main lessons we can draw from the way our Com Team has developed. Our other main goal for these meetings was to identify a core team coordinator for EuroCom and to describe the structure of the network across Europe. This we also succeeded in doing, identifying Rodney Blevins here at Heidebeek as the coordinator. The strength of having him in this role is the good working relatonship he already has established with Jeff.

There were a number of very techie people at these meetings. This is a great strength of the particular group of communicators we have in Europe and there is potential for them to help enormously in finding technical solutions to some of the communication challenges we have in other parts of the world. For a big picture person like me I tend to find the tangents of detailed discussion surrounding IT solutions a little tedious; I like to keep everyone focused on why we do what we do. But hey, we need both and we had a very talented group together for these meetings ... I for one am inspired to keep plugging away at helping YWAM to communicate more effectively!