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Senior Trainers
What are mission HUB Schools in Ethiopia?
Initially, the intentions of Ethiopia Word of Life Churches (EKHC) was to bring all untrained cross-cultural evangelists/missionaries working among the unreached people groups to its center in Durame (EKSM) and provide special training on missions. But this proved impossible due to the huge financial resource and the long time it requires to train all 2,000 evangelists/missionaries working in the mission field. Furthermore, the EKHC leadership thought that removing all these workers from their respective fields for training could be detrimental for the newly planted churches. In addition to this, handling such a large number of evangelists/missionaries at the same time could be difficult for EKSM brought the ideas to start "mission HUB Schools" (missionary training by extension) in selected strategic areas where the majority of cross-cultural evangelists/missionaries serve. The name preferred to better signify the schools' purpose is Mission HUB School.
WHY ARE THEY NEEDED
Research and experience have shown that cross-cultural workers become more effective when they are trained on the field. EKSM also believes that on the job cross-cultural training will help evangelists/missionaries to enhanced their effectiveness on the mission field. The majority of EKHC's cross-cultural evangelists/ministers were sent to the mission field without or with minimal training in cross-cultural missions. Although a good number of these have attended Bible Schools, they did not receive courses on missions.
The purpose of EKHC Mission HUB Schools is to take the cross-cultural training to the mission field, or respective areas where evangelists/missionary ministers, providing them with advanced mission training. This training will introduce them to concepts and strategies of mission and cross-cultural communication skills.
The main object for opening mission HUB Schools is part of EKHC's effort to speed up the process of upgrading the ability of over 2,000 regional an national cross-cultural evangelist/missionaries sent by local congregations and zonal/district offices, serving among the unreached and least reached people groups of Ethiopia.
CORE ACTIVITIES
To develop the competence of existing regional and national cross-cultural evangelists/missionaries in the following three key areas:
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Knowledge Formation: Teaching cross-cultural and missions principles in the classroom context
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Spiritual Formation: Working on trainees' character and spiritual development
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Practical Skills: Sending trainees back to their respective mission fields to apply the principles they learned in the classrooms.
During their training, the evangelists/missionaries will develop a strong prayer life/discipline. This will create a network helping them to mobilize believers in their respective local churches/zones/districts for breaking strong holds they encounter in tribal sub-groups.
HOW THEY OPERATE
The Mission Hub Schools' program is not like the other EKHC ministry training programs where trainees stay to study for longer periods of time. It is an on the job training. In order to achieve its objectives, the program uses the existing infrastructure of respective zones/churches. The trainees selected for this program must be national and regional evangelists/missionaries, who are directly involved in church planting activity but with no cross-cultural training.
In addition to the main trainer (director) in each school, the mission HUB Schools will use experienced guest teachers from the nearby areas and also from abroad. Depending on the situations in the area, weekends could be used for instructions. All instructional media will be in Amharic and Afan Oromo.
The evangelist/missionary come to the training center for a month of training (six times in a year) and returns back to their respective field of ministry for a month (five months in a year). Every time trainees comes back to the center they must have written an up-to-date field report. The training program will take one year to complete after which successful trainees will earn a diploma or certificate in missions, depending on the grade level they finished in secondary school.
The trainees' schedule for a month at the mission HUB School will consist of:
1. Arriving at the center on Sunday evening
2. Spend each Monday in prayer
3. Formal classes from Tuesday thru Friday
4. Returning to their ministry on the last Saturday of the month
5. Taking assignments with them to be completed before returning to the center for their next month of training
EXPECTED OUTCOME
At the end of training, over 2,000 reginal and national cross-cultural evangelists/missionaries will be trained and the present church growth rate will accelerate from 10% to 15% per annum.