WILBERFORCE ACADEMY

When Bob Osburn, the Academy’s founder, met him at a faculty meeting on the 4th floor of the student union on the U of Minnesota campus late in February 2009, Thangboi Haokip seemed like a man with a mission. Now, he’s back in India pursuing that mission.

One of among 77 mid-career educators recently chosen from around the world by US State Department staff, Thangboi was sent for five months of intensive study at the University of Minnesota, from January through May 2009. When he arrived, he met some Lutherans who offered to help him. When he arrived at their church, he noticed a Baptist church across the street. A Baptist follower of Christ in India, Thangboi visited that church the very next Sunday, having no idea that members of that church had a close relationship with the very last American missionary to Manipur state, from which Thangboi hails! So when he wandered into a meeting of Christian faculty in February, it was already obvious that God was doing something special in Thangboi.

It wasn’t long, however, before Thangboi revealed the way Jesus had been moving inside him. For months, his family back home had urged him to found a Christian K- 10 school to serve the thousands of poor children in his corner of India close to the Burmese border. “By God’s grace, I want to start that school,” he said to Bob.

Realizing that time was short, Bob immediately began to focus his energies by coaching Thangboi to develop a project proposal that would forward the project so that the school could launch in February 2010.

Bob was able to join Thangboi on December 15, 2009 in Sugnu, Manipur state, India to inaugurate Cornerstone Academy Manipur. God will uses countless others in years ahead to be redemptive change agents in their home societies, just like Thangboi.

Bob immediately began meeting with him, utilizing a text that will be incorporated into the developing curriculum of the Academy. The book is If Jesus Were Mayor, by Robert Moffitt. Together Thangboi and Bob explored the implications of a Christian worldview for one’s community and one’s nation.