TUMI Year Review

Curriculum Completion
This year we completed our latest curriculum entitled, Fighting the Good Fight of Faith: Playing Your Part in God’s Unfolding Drama. This practical resource is designed to help new and growing Christians become effective disciples and warriors of Christ. It is built entirely on the Story of God as told in the Scriptures. Following the thematic outline of Ephesians, the nine integrated lessons guide believers to understand what the Bible says about their participation in God’s grand Story. These studies lay out the key elements in how we fulfill our role in God’s Story, allowing students to grow as disciples of Christ as they are grounded in the basics of the Christian faith and walk. This resource serves as the official precursor to TUMI’s Capstone Curriculum, providing a solid introduction to the Bible’s major themes as well as the foundational principles of Christian discipleship.

Continued Campus and Student Growth
The list of approved TUMI satellite campuses grew from 156 to 184 this year, and we added sites in Spain, South Africa, and Tanzania – now TUMI is in 14 countries. Our list of graduates went from 161 to 308. We launched our 32nd TUMI site in California prisons, continuing our partnership with Prison Fellowship. There are now over 1,000 incarcerated students who are being trained for ministry – they are missionaries with the prison system and they can minister upon release. New partnerships have been formed with the Charismatic Episcopal Church, Fuller Seminary, and several U.S. churches who are interested in starting TUMI sites in other countries through their ongoing missions programs.

Translation Projects
TUMI is currently in the process of translating the Capstone curriculum into three languages: Romanian, Telegu (an Indian language), and Arabic. There are several other ministries who have expressed interest in having Capstone in their language, including French, Portuguese, Hindi (India), Italian, Amharic (Ethiopia), Creole, Swahili, and Nepalese. There is growing interest in starting TUMI sites using the languages we already have including Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, and several countries in Africa.

SIAFU Network Chapters
The SIAFU Network (pronounced see-AH-foo) is a national association of chapters anchored in local urban churches and ministries dedicated to the advancement of the Kingdom in the city. The chapters gather regularly for worship, study, testimony, prayer, and they sponsor service projects designed to demonstrate tangible Christian love in underserved areas. We now have 9 SIAFU Chapters, all in the United States, seven of which are community based, and two inside correctional facilities.

The network of SIAFU chapters is growing. In Topeka, Kansas, alone there are three: two in neighborhoods and one within the walls of Shawnee County Jail. SIAFU Central Park meets in the home of TUMI Site Coordinator, Mary Flin. This chapter meets right after church and shares their Sunday meal together as a family. There are a variety of lives represented in the room from neighbors to visitors to those who have re-entered from the nearby jail. All who come are encouraged, challenged and treated like family.