Hello fellow educators,

Welcome to 2009. It was literally one year ago that I began this podcast. It has become a great means of connecting with our own educational team all over the Province of British Columbia, both teachers and our home educators, but it has also opened up a new world of educators around the globe. We have heard from people all over the US and the rest of Canada who are becoming regular listeners. The best way to make sure that you don’t miss a podcast is to subscribe to ITunes or the RSS feed. Details as to how to do this can be found on the Christian Educator Website. Yes, we are still sending out copies of my last book: Discipling This Generation for a Digital World to those that will send me an email. Get the details at the end of the podcast.

Before we get back to our series based on my book, I wanted to share with you a special conversation I had with my friend, Ryan. If you have been following our podcasts you will know that I just returned from Kitale, Kenya where our schools are beginning to work with an orphanage that our Church has adopted. We have just recently built a classroom in a Christian school to make room for about half of our children. We are trusting God will provide for our other 15 children in the years to come. We work with two other organizations in Kenya, Hope for the Nations and Love Mercy Ministries. Ryan is the Kenya missionary with Love Mercy. He is a young man of 29. He is not married and comes from my home state. In my two recent visits of July and December Ryan and I have become good friends. I must say he is a remarkable young man who has dedicated his entire life to help the people of that region of the world in some very significant ways. The reason why I think this interview is relevant for us as Christian educators is the vision and example that his life could portray to our up and coming students. Here is a guy whose training is in areas that are very different than what we would expect in a missionary. As you will hear I try to direct the conversation in ways that make it pertinent to our task of training and discipline students. It used to be that we would send potential missionaries to Bible school then throw them to the field. I think that Biblical training is important and Ryan spent three years at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. But his most valuable contributions are in his development of Bio-intensive farming techniques, organic fertilizer, and water well drilling. He has a staff of about 30 Africans who work on their farms, fertilizer factory, drilling rigs or one of the orphanages.  When I visit with Ryan I get a picture of what our students could be doing worldwide to make a huge difference for the kingdom of God. I also can see how relevant our training in science, math, English and other languages becomes for the future and destiny of our kids. I hope you can listen with these kinds of ears. The conversation is a bit informal. I was trying to show Ryan how easy it is to podcast and it turned into this interview:

Audio Only

Thanks to my friend Ryan Schumacker in Kitale Kenya. If you want further information about Ryan and his ministry or our work in Kenya please send us an email. Next week we will continue our look at Informationalism and how it is changing everything about education. If you would like us to mail you a free copy of my book simply send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and let us know what type of an educator you are, home schooler, classroom teacher, school administrator, or interested parent. Please let us know how you heard about the podcast and, of course, please include your mailing address.

Thank you for listening and for your commitment to discipleship-based Christian education.