Diosidencia is not a real word…but it should
be.
Since we
first heard it here in Mexico, we can't help but use this conjunction
of Dios
(God) and coincidencia (coincidence)
when it so perfectly describes a moment or event that you know
is too coincidental to be just that. For example, you wake up
in the middle of the night with the feeling that you should pray
for Sam, so you do, and the next day she calls you up and tells
you someone tried to break into her house but didn't get in. Or
you're in Mexico City, you get pulled over by a policeman and
he doesn't ask for a bribe - no wait, that's a flat-out miracle
:-)
Let me tell
you about a Diosidencia that is happening lately. As you know,
one of our big projects for the last 2+ years is the creation
of an interactive, animated youth ministry course. It should be
completed next month. However, without students and without a
school, even the best of courses is simply a teacher standing
alone with a book or two under his arms…pretty useless. Our
concerns have been 1)
how to publish the course online, 2)
accreditation, 3)
how to find students (marketing).
Just
a couple of weeks ago, Felix Ortiz, a good friend and one of the
authors of the book on which we are basing the course, told us
that a young guy in his organization there in Spain had developed
a website specifically for online training courses. It provides
a way for students to register, pay (if necessary),
interact with other students and teachers, download and turn in
homework assignments, etc. It works beautifully and - tadah
- they've already put the first 14 classes of our course on the
website.
With the
internet it doesn't matter where in the world you are, so it's
no problem that the tutor for the course lives in Costa Rica and
many of the students in this first group live in Peru (part of
the follow-up from a conference we were involved in there last
summer with Compassion International.)
As for accreditation:
we're excited about the possibilities of incorporating our course
into a degree program from Miami
International Seminary.
So things
are falling into place, one Dioscidencia at a time :-)
Thanks for
your prayers!
& 
Tim
-----------and---------Annette