Bridging Culture. Working Together.

I came to visit a family in Mararaba, Nigeria who are missionaries in Sierra Leone working with the CRC Church.  They quickly became family to me while we were in Sierra Leone.  When I arrived in their hometown, I asked them if they had ever climbed the hill behind their house.  After telling me they had never climbed it, we decided this must be accomplished before I left.  While hiking, I was thinking about how different my own experiences hiking in the U.S have been to hiking in Nigeria and Sierra Leone so I thought I would share them with you.    Getting Ready to Hike: When we go hiking in the U.S, we like to have our name brand hiking clothes: Patagonia, Keen, Camelback, etc.  We like to wear special lightweight clothes that dry quickly and wear hiking boots that weigh too much you can barely lift your foot.   Your feet produce a horrible smell after a long hike and your hiking boots have to be kept outside because of the stench.   Here, you go hiking with flip-flops.   T

Graduate training program participants! I had the opportunity to take part in a graduate training program for recent graduates from University here in Nigeria.   The program is a three-month program sponsored by a school in Lagos, Nigeria.   They had over 5,000 applicants and 30 were accepted into the program.   The idea is that they will train these teachers in “modern” teaching methods and the sponsoring school will then hire the best teachers.   The remaining students will then get recommended to other schools around Nigeria.     Not only is the program providing quality teachers for their own school, but they are also developing teachers to teach all throughout Nigeria.   One of the struggles for me teaching in Sierra Leone was to bridge the gap between modern teaching methods and the traditional teaching methods.    Traditional teaching methods simply consist of the teacher writing on the blackboard, and the students copying and memorizing.  We struggled together to figur

Working on integrating Biblical worldview into Social Studies Curriculum “How do I teach a biblical perspective on creation when students need to know about the concept of evolution for their exams?”  Questions like this were a common theme during a teacher training on integrating Biblical worldview in the classroom.  This question is an ongoing struggle for teachers in Nigeria, as well as all over the world, as we struggle with teaching concepts that are not necessary Biblical because the students are going to be tested on these concepts in their external, nationwide exams.  This is where the importance of Christian education is important.   We as teachers may be required to teach these concepts that go against our Biblical worldview.   However, as teachers in Christian schools, we have the opportunity to share a Biblical perspective on these controversial concepts.    From my own perspective, we need to expose students to the lies that we face in our society, and counter t