Sensitive China Update | Redacted for Security Reasons

To: Gospel Light Worldwide
From: Redacted, Project Leader, China

Greetings from Beijing,

It is our hope to give you an update on where our work stands currently. I hope that it blesses you with wisdom in your funding and prayer efforts.

Our team believes strongly in the future of children’s ministry in China. We believe that over the years our work together has allowed us to build up in-country resources, connections, and experience that as faithful stewards we would be amiss not to continually apply to His work.

Despite recent funding challenges, we have fought to keep the momentum on this project going. It has been our delight to see the Lord provide for the printing of some materials in cooperation with the Redacted and Redacted here in China. While this was a milestone, it was also quickly recognized how important it would be for these monumental materials to be effectively promoted and distributed.

Otherwise the partners involved might not realize the full potential and value of the curriculum, which could endanger the future of the project perpetuating. Hence, we moved forward with an effort to market and provide basic training based on our Chinese children’s Bible curriculum.

Redacted, our training team coordinator, has experience of more than five years in developing curriculum and establishing contacts in the children’s ministry field was determined key to its success. Redacted, our former curriculum development team leader was asked to coordinate efforts to achieve goals of market awareness, spiritual growth, and effective use of the curriculum. She focused on Sunday School teachers and churches, as they were the target audience identified by our team and Redacted, who wishes to remain unnamed.

We continue these efforts with limited resources, in belief that this important work needs to continue. We also recognized that you are experiencing major financial challenges in the USA and that your economic conditions could make it difficult to raise the necessary funding.

As we have pressed forward with this work, we have constantly been in prayer concerning your funding efforts. Recently it became necessary for us to evaluate our ability to continue in these crucial activities. It was determined that we could not. However, then we also learned that you had received some funding for training efforts. This caused us to re-examine your funding proposal goals and possibilities under the current climate in China. The past 5 months have also been instructive in determining what is possible.

Since the beginning of the year, some items of interest are:

• Series of trainings are organized and appointed for Summer 2009
• Potential Trainers interviewed without success, illustrating the value of those who have already been identified as assets
• Brief trainings conducted in Beijing, Shandong, Henan, and Jilin
• Multi-day trainings scheduled for July and August
• Conference in Hong Kong attended for promotion purposes
• Book promotion and orders filled in areas unreached by Redacted
• Steady growth of website traffic seen month over month since February

The training vision you outlined for 2009-2010 is very aggressive. On paper it represents a vision that if accomplished would indeed have dramatic impact. Our team together with those currently doing training work in the Mainland attempted to put together a plan that might potentially achieve those you had presented.

Each party in these discussions noted how the environment of training in the Mainland has changed in the last few years. Longer trainings (3-4 weeks) are proving to be less effective, and pulling teachers from several locales to a central location can be expensive and dangerous. Those teachers that can dedicate 3 weeks are often the ones that do not practically have the influence needed to create a reproducing movement.

Rather many groups are moving to short focused training over a period of time that includes repeat visits and mentoring by a trainer or training team. This often means that not only the key influences of the church are able to benefit from the training but also the members of the church as a whole. Repeat visits foster an environment of feedback, mentored growth, and identifying true potential trainers. Visiting the churches gives them opportunities to become familiar with the materials, learn how to use them, and catch the vision behind them. They also become equipped to support the trainers/champions who will be sent out from their own church to train others in different locations.

The ability to raise up 40 such individuals crucial to reaching out to the next envisioned 400 and following 4,000 is a considerable undertaking. Proving that 40 individuals can be effectively raised up is important for the overall success.

We are laying out a plan that we believe in the next 6 to 9 months may see 20 of the 40 trainers raised from larger groups following the above method currently being used by several groups. We would call this Phase 1, which would involve working with 2-4 locales and groups. We would send trainers on a monthly to bi-monthly basis to conduct short trainings on aspects of Sunday School teaching, management, and curriculum implementation.

Through this process we would identify those in the trainings who have gifting and ability to become part of these potential 40 core trainers. Multiple visits would allow us to gain local Church buy-in and accurately identify these trainers, giving them opportunities to teach alongside the trainers first in their local context.

The successful implementation of this first phase would then allow us to look forward to the additional goals outlined in your proposal. At this time it would be difficult to confidently state that those additional components, namely the 400 and 4,000, are achievable. We would like to believe that they may be.

Phase 1 Teacher Training and Curriculum Marketing includes:

• Short-term teacher training (2-3 days) for two hundred teachers
• Continued mentoring of trained teachers
• Networking with local leaders about curriculum
• Networking with Christian websites to link with curriculum website

Understanding our current funding status, we will require $52,642 US to conduct this first phase of effort. Should you agree with our approach, we would like to request that we proceed with the release of those funds to begin the work of establishing the core capable trainers of Phase One.

With Hope for the Future!

Redacted

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