Cicone October 2025

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Greetings faithful supporters!

As we write this letter, we are so thankful to our Heavenly Father for how He has blessed our work. God has done great things this year in Tanzania. We have more than we can share in this brief newsletter, but we trust that what we share will be encouraging to you. Pictured below is the Home Office team that visited recently and the National Staff. If you look closely, you can see the beautiful double rainbow in the backgound.

RICE

We started the year with thirteen students, and we are now down to nine. Of the four who left the program, three have teaching jobs (Mr. Livinus is teaching science in the secondary school at Rafiki) and one had to leave due to health issues. The remaining nine students have made a lot of progress this year. One strength of our RICE Program is that we provide lots of classroom teaching experience. Gwen and Andrew observe the students and provide feedback to help them improve their classical teaching skills. The Rafiki RICE class of 2025 will finish and graduate in early December. We are praying that God will provide jobs for these students so they can begin spreading classical teaching methods to other schools.

RICE students displaying the color wheels they made

EC3 Students doing opening exercises

Madam Violeth with GL11 students

End of the school day

Mr. Patrick with GL9 math students

Rafiki Classical Christian School

Our school has been blessed with 408 students this year (three-year-olds to eleventh grade…Tanzanian schools only go to eleventh grade). This is an increase of about twenty percent in the three years we have been in Tanzania. When we interview parents of prospective students, we always ask what they have heard about Rafiki. The answer always comes back as good academics and students being transformed in a good way. We are so thankful to hear this. We explain that our daily Bible study is a major contributor and also our use of classical pedagogy encourages students to think for themselves which gives them a confidence their peers in other schools do not develop. Grades two, four, nine, and eleven are preparing for national exams in October and November. We thank God for past success and look forward to another good year.

Partner School

Rafiki’s goal is to share our Bible study and curriculum with other schools. We are excited by our partnership with the New Beginnings School. This school is also run by Americans (a group of churches mostly in Oklahoma) and was started a few years ago. They have been using the Rafiki Bible Study and Rafiki Education System for the past two years. They also hire one to two RICE graduates each year. We can proudly say that God has established two classical Christian schools in Tanzania!

We are so thankful to all the prayers and support we receive from our brothers and sisters back in the United States. While God’s call has taken us far way, we always feel that we are close to all of you.

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