Education and Culture... Odessa, Ukraine

What does Christian education look like in Odessa, Ukraine? Well, in many ways it looks a lot like it does here, and in other ways it looks very different.

This past week I traveled to Odessa, Ukraine to put on a conference for the faculty and staff of a small Christian school in Odessa, Dawn Christian School. Our school's chaplain came with me, and together we put on a two day conference on what we do at Westminster Christian Academy.

We spoke on such topics as vision and mission, student placement and three dimensional teaching. What we found is that the cultural struggles of our country are also their struggles as well. Far and away, the most frequent question topic asked was about student discipline.

Dawn Christian School (DCS) is provided space by a local Catholic school. The school struggles to survive as the economy in Ukraine is in poorer shape that ours. It is currently support mostly by donations from our country, but it is growing as this year they had to turn away many families from the kindergarten due to a lack of space. The faculty and staff are a dedicated bunch as evidenced by two female faculty who ride a bus for almost two hours one way just to work at DCS.

The city and country are beautiful, but the people are even more beautiful. The pace of life is slower because relationships are important. Conversations are very much a part of the culture and beauty is considered important too. Walking the streets of Odessa, I tried to imagine what this city looked like prior to communism... it must have been a sight to behold because it is slowly becoming beautiful once again. Each street is lined with buildings built with a unique touch. Each building is different aesthetically yet they all fit together to form one building. The roof lines are home to gables, carvings and some of the most beautiful woodwork I have seen. Streets range from cobblestone to pavement and are lined with trees and bushes. Odessa is home to many parks each full of flowers, green grass and statutes.

Education and culture in Odessa, Ukraine will be an interesting study as one intersects with the other in the coming years. As churches and Christian schools grow, the impact each this culture will be a testimony to the power of the gospel.  Join me in praying for Ukraine and other countries like it as God breaks into their reality to bring more to Him. Blessings!

Better or Worse

In 1992 Francis Fukuyama wrote an interested book entitled, The End of History and the Last Man. In that book he wrote this:

"The experience of the twentieth century made highly problematic the claims of progress on the basis of science and technology. For the ability of technology to better human life is critically dependent on a parallel moral progress in man. Without the later, the power of technology will simply be turned to evil purposes, and mankind will be worse off than it was previously."

Now I have no idea where Fukuyama stands spiritually, but I can probably guess after reading his book, but that does not matter. The issue is not his spiritual standing; the issue is his statement above. Is it valid?

We tend to look at technology as a panacea - something that will solve all of our social and educational ills. Today's technology is no different than yesterday's; the computer, the horse or the car... all must be created or managed by mankind. Technological advances, no matter what they are, better no one and save no one on their own. We can examine history and see evidence of how technological advances, initially used for good, were eventually used for evil. Does that mean we do not continue to create and invent? Absolutely not!

But, it does mean that we must understand culture to understand where we currently are in relation to the past. Fukuyama is right in the fact that the moral progress must not stop. Sadly, it's progress has slowed. Somewhere along the way, morality became a weakness, a sickness, if you will, of which we must be cured.

It is interesting that Fukuyama makes this statement early in chapter one of his book, goes on to examine the Industrial revolution and its role in history, democracy and its relationships to fascism and communism, and, yet, never comes back to visit this idea of moral decline. Instead, he ends chapter one pointing to this idea of betterment as he writes,

"As we reach the 1990s, the world as a whole has not revealed new evils, but has gotten better in certain distinct ways. Chief among the surprises that have occurred in the recent past was the totally unexpected collapse of communism throughout much of the world in the late 1980s." 

Today, in 2011, we struggle with many things. In our country alone, we have two parties who have lost the ability to debate on issues. We have a national debt spiraling out of control, an economy on the brink and a polarized nation. Why? When morality is removed from the our national psyche everyone is right, all the time. There is no equation for unity because 1+1=1.

Morality is the fiber that strengthens the national fabric in ways that allow for difference and debate. When there is no moral fiber there will be no debate because the fabric is weak and frail, especially in the middle. The middle is where the real work gets done, and where the moral fiber is strongest. It is the moral fiber that brings the many different pieces of fabric together in order to have one large quilt made of many different pieces of fabric, each important and distinct in their own way. The moral fiber takes all those differences and brings them together, forming one strong quilt. Without the moral fiber, each individual fabric stays isolated and becomes paranoid and protective, and all actions are for its own purposes and protection. Sound familiar? Better or worse, that may not even be the question any more? Blessings!