Wednesday 24
Today Derek and his dad are making a trip to León for two main reasons. First,
he'll visit a group of pastors that Derek's church has been forming a relationship with through the Healthy Churches program of the Nehemiah Center. He'll give them an update on his own church and bring a word from them. Then the other focus will be getting to know how Dordt SPIN (Semester Program in Nicaragua) works, with the intention of getting Redeemer students involved.
he'll visit a group of pastors that Derek's church has been forming a relationship with through the Healthy Churches program of the Nehemiah Center. He'll give them an update on his own church and bring a word from them. Then the other focus will be getting to know how Dordt SPIN (Semester Program in Nicaragua) works, with the intention of getting Redeemer students involved.
Thursday 25 & Friday 26
We will be visiting the Univiersidad Nacional de Ingenieria, invited by some of the Christian professors in Mathematics, Electronic Engineering, and Computer Science. We've also invited students and professors from Universidad Martín Lutero, Univsersidad Politécnica de Nicaragua, and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua, through connections we have with Christian profs. Derek will have the opportunity to share his expertise as well as his perspective. Our partner organization who is helping organize these lectures is CECNIC (a Christian student movement in universities). They're hoping this will be spiritually enriching for their own students--as a way to stir up a new interest in Bible study and for reaching out to students who aren't Christians. And since we're not sure what kind of audience it will draw, I believe it will also be an opportunity for students to hear the Good News from Derek. CECNIC is also providing us with a translator. These two days are really an experiment. We don't know if we'll have 5 people show up, 50, or 500...hopefully not 5, and hopefully not 500! Pray that everything goes smoothly: including the translation, the lecture space they have set apart, the topics that Derek will speak on, and everything else!
Lectures:
"Technology and The Tower of Babel"
"Current Issues in Computers: Internet, Social Networking, and More"
"Open Source Software for Teaching Engineering"
"The World of Robots"
"Open Source Software: Introduction and Opportunities"
In addition, Derek will be spending some informal time with professors to talk with them about curriculum, teaching methods, and whatever else comes up.
Saturday 27
We'll be getting as many university professors together as possible from the same universities for a morning where Derek will present the topic "Towards a Christian View of Computer Science." This is another event where I'm not sure how many people will come. We've had about 5 profs say that they are very interested, and more are just hearing about it today. Pray that more people will be interested and decide to come, and that we'll be able to help form a community of these people for future events and networking. It will be neat to see what kind of ways God is at work in these schools, and if they'll be able to come together in any cool ways. Pray that they catch the vision of the larger body of believers working together for God's glory in the world of academics and beyond.
Sunday 28
Rest! Church and I don't know what yet.
Monday Nov. 29 - Wednesday Dec. 1
Derek and his father will be helping me to prepare 100 refurbished computers that will be delivered to Christian schools either mid-December or early January. We have a Dordt student, Daniel, helping us as well on this endeavor--it's a huge task. Unfortunately I just found out he has dengue, which is very unfortunate for us...but even more unfortunate for him. Please pray that he heals quickly. Pray also that we're able to get a lot of refurbishing done with Derek and his dad, otherwise we'll have a ton (!) of work on our hands preparing the machines.
We'll also take this time to talk further about linking Redeemer with the NC. Pray that those talks are fruitful.
Thursday 2 - Friday 3
The group of computer teachers from lower-ed schools (our RedProCom group) will be coming to the NC for two days of training and workshops with Derek. He'll teach many of the same things as he taught to the universities. Pray that teachers are encouraged and come away with a lot of material that they can use in their classes.
Saturday 4
Derek and his dad leave early in the morning. I take a nap. Then maybe another nap.
I'll try to take some pictures and post them here throughout the week. Stay tuned!
you need to update this thing. ;)
ReplyDelete-steph