Last Lessons #87 – RICE

 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”  Deuteronomy 6:5-7

When Rafiki built schools in our Villages and taught our Christian classical curriculum, everybody in the neighborhood wanted their children to go there. Go figure! It was hard to keep up with the demand for day students who wanted to join with Rafiki resident children in such an excellent school. So Rafiki built more school buildings and admitted as many fee-paying day students as they would hold. The problem was finding enough Christian teachers who understood how to teach using the classical method. Actually, there were none! That’s when the Lord led us to consider building our own teacher training colleges where government-qualified teachers could take a three-year course at Rafiki, learn from our missionary teachers, and practice in our Village schools. We called our teacher training colleges RICE (Rafiki Institute for Classical Education). A former missionary and Rafiki staff member, Dr. Carol Kranz, with other colleagues put the RICE courses together and set up the program. In each Village we built a RICE complex that included a building with six classrooms, a gymnasium/auditorium, offices, and a lunchroom, plus separate buildings for the teaching of music and art. The whole complex is quite impressive! God has worked in the hearts of generous donors so that we now have RICE buildings in all but a couple of countries. The headmaster of RICE in each Village is a missionary who raises his/her own support, so we are able to offer the training free to the students.  

The first graduates of RICE were our own Rafiki Village schoolteachers. By God’s grace we will be able to train many teachers who will work in church schools to improve the education system in Africa. Since Rafiki is now able to provide Christian classical curriculum and teachers trained to teach it, who knows what God will do to change Africa?! 

I learned the importance of educating children in Africa when I taught school there in the 1960’s. I was a trained teacher, and I did the best I could teaching fifth, sixth, and seventh grades in one room of 18 children. But I had not been trained in the USA to teach using the classical method. By God’s grace I knew how to teach the Bible, so the children did well, but what I wish I had learned is what Rafiki is providing in Africa today for teachers in RICE.

Today we need Christian classical schools in the USA and there are a few hundred. We need thousands! And as far as I know, there are only a handful of Christian liberal arts colleges that prepare teachers in the classical method. 

I know that God answers prayer, so I am praying for more Christian classical schools and more Christian classical teacher-training colleges in the USA. Will you pray with me? Won’t it be wonderful if God answers our prayers by sending some US classically trained teachers to Africa to work in Rafiki’s RICE program? 

“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” Job 42:2