Master's Class Graduates In VVBC...

Greetings to you in the precious name of Lord Jesus Christ. 

Lord has blessed us with the Preacher Training program through your kind help. By the grace of God and your kind encouragements we have reached two milestones so far. One is training 16 men in the year 2009-11, and the second is, 9 preachers receiving Master's Diploma from Bear Valley Bible Institute of Denver, which made the total students sent our to the mission field from our school is 25. 

Now, we reached another milestone, that is sending another 13 successful students (2011-13) to the mission field. Tomorrow, we shall be having the graduation ceremony of the students for successfully completing the course. We are excited about that, we shall have brother Jerry Bates representing BVBID who will be awarding the Diplomas to the students. 

Graduation of first Master Class:
We believe that the Scripture is revealed to us by the inspired men so that the man of God is equipped for every good work. The good work involves teaching, correcting, reproofing and for training in righteousness. We are certainly blessed to have Visakha Valley Bible College to teach the inspired word to the man of God to do every good work. Nine students out of the twelve have successfully completed the required work in order to receive the MA diploma from Bear Valley Bible Institute of Denver.

So far, our school has sent out 25 students including these 9 masters class students. As a result, they are working with 30 different congregations in 30 different places, glory to God.  Now, with this 16 new graduates the total number of students sent are 41. 

At this time we honor the name of the mighty God for His kindness through which we were blessed to be His children. However without someone going to the world and preaching the word, the whole world would be lost. The mission of the Elders of the Bear Valley Church of Christ is coming true, through their dedicated efforts. We are thankful to them for allowing us to use their curriculum and present Diplomas to our students.

We thank the dear elders of the Lake Houston Church of Christ for continuing your support to accomplish something great for our Lord, that is training the men to effectively carryout the gospel to lost millions in India. We appreciate your trust and confidence. At this time I must appreciate brother Steve Wiseman who is instrumental in this relationship going on. Above every thing, glory goes to our Lord God for blessing us with Visakha Valley Bible College, which is producing effective evangelists to proclaim the good news to the lost millions in India. 

Please convey our greetings to the brethren in the congregation. God bless,  

John Dean Muppidi
Skinner's Garden Bible School
Visakha Valley Bible College
Church of Christ
Andhra Pradesh,  INDIA
Cell: 091 - 9989922844

Local Congregation Is Growing In India...

We salute you in the matchless name of Lord Jesus Christ our Savior and Redeemer of the world.  It is so wonderful to witness the baptism of several people especially those belonging to a certain denominational group during the last two months. These results have been a great encouragement to the school as well as to the local congregation. 

Church is growing:
Local congregation: We were uplifted by the addition of new souls to the local congregation that meets at VVBC facility. In the recent visit of brother Denton Landon, who taught Master Class students, he worshipped with the local congregation. When he saw the large group gathered on that Sunday he remarked that the ‘local church is growing.’

Gradually our school and the local congregation are becoming well known by the brethren all over the city of Visakhapatnam. We are happy with the increase in not just the attendance but also the addition of members to the local congregation. Recently a mother and her daughter have been added to the church. They were attending the worship service and mid week bible class and the local minister who also works in the town have been studying with them for 3 months. Finally they made a decision and embraced Christ and be added to the church, the family of God. We rejoiced with them. We are happy to say that the church is growing in number as well as spiritually. 

Mission Work:
Our graduates are putting forth their full energy & time for the evangelism in this part of Andhra Pradesh. Through Bible classes and gospel meetings they are proclaiming the word of God.

The two newly established congregations are gathering every Sunday for worshipping God. Brother David Raju, who is one of our students who recently began ministering of the congregations, is facing problems from the denominational church where he was a member.  Kindly pray that he would be strong and courageous to overcome the problems.

Revelation class is going on very well. One of our faculty, brother Vamsee Bhushanam, has been teaching this class for the last 6 months. This class is helping the students to clear all their doubts and misunderstandings about the book of Revelation. Our graduate, brother Prakash, is arranging this class once a month. From time to time the number of students is increasing for this class. This has become another avenue to give publicity to our school.

We have been hearing from our graduates about their personal Bible studies and how they are progressing. We had one Master’s class student baptized into Christ. He is from a very remote area. He is going to be very influential in that area to bring many to Christ.   

A Hindu Activist:
As you are aware our country is predominantly Hindu. Over 80% of the people belong to Hinduism. These people in our country profess that all the people in India are Hindus by birth. Severity of the religion is very high in some places, especially in the northern part of India. However, there are some places in south India which are called as sensitive places where the severity of the religion is very high because there are some Hindu radicals who deny every religion in India because for them the rest of the religions are foreign religions.

In the times of Jesus, when the gospel was being preached, several radical people were converted and conservative Jews also. Those who harmed and cheated people also embraced Christ. Even those soldiers who spat on him and mocked said, “Truly this one was God’s Son!” We do not know for sure how the widows of the heart of several people are opened; this is what exactly happened when one of our graduates, G. Srinivas, preached in his village which is in Visakha district. This is what we have been pursuing through our Bible School.

Brother Narayana Murthy was an active BJP leader. This is a national party who are very religious and believe that India has no other religion than Hinduism. For them other religions are not considered as local, rather they are foreign.  Mr. Murthy has heard Srinivas’s father proclaiming the word of God. He was attracted to the message and came to the preacher and put forth all his questions about God and the message he heard. Their first conversation ended up with lot of excitement where Murthy wanted Srinivas to visit his house and hold a Bible Study, to everybody’s surprise he began studying the Bible then on. 

Master Class: 
We had a good start with the Master classes. 9 students enrolled in the calls, in fact there were 3 others who missed those classes because of their personal problems; now they wanted to join in the classes. I do not know whether they will be able to or not. We had two classes taught by brother Denton, one is ‘Introduction to the graduate research’ and the second is ‘Advanced Apologetics’. At first it took some time for the students to get connected with the instructor, chief reason is listening the whole class in English. Since English is not our spoken language it is a problem. Only the students who are good at Bible and English vocabulary can understand these classes well. Since these students have a great desire to learn and enhance their knowledge base, they put forth a lot effort to go along with the flow. As a result these students have thoroughly enjoyed these classes. We appreciate brother Denton for his patience with these students, because at times he had to pause if something is not understood correctly by the students.

John Dean the Dean of the School is also enrolled in this class since he wants to help the rest of the students by doing the follow up. All the master class students will be meeting next week to discuss and write down the assignments for the two subjects taught by brother Denton.  

Library:
As we all realize for a successful Bible School, a well furnished library shall have a great impact. Assuredly it is the same with our school, too. With the small donations we are receiving and the books we are receiving from World Evangelism as well the books we are receiving from brethren like Chuck Ramseur and Jerry Bates our library is gradually having an increase in the number of books. Hopefully our meeting again will be well spent in our small library so that all the master class students will finish the assignments successfully. By the way, this is the only source for our Master Class students for doing a healthy research. I hope we shall be blessed with more books as the days go by.

Guests:
Dr. Jack Tucci, the Vice President of academic Affairs, Faulkner University visited with us. We were blessed with his precious visit. He was here a couple of years ago and wanted to see how the work is progressing. He was very anxious to meet the students and faculty to teach his favorite lesson about the history of the city Ephesus. He taught the lesson through a power point slide show. It has all the scenic pictures of the City of Ephesus that describes its wealthiest history, showing the harbor and the great temple of Diana. He presented the history which is relevant for the students who study the epistle to the Romans. His description helped the students to understand the epistle contextually. It was amazing. Our students have really learned so much about and from the epistle through the presentation of Dr. Jack Tucci. 

Brother Jack has admired the school work and encouraged the students to be diligent in learning the word of God and be efficient in proclaiming what they are learning. He appreciated their dedication and commitment to work for the Lord. The kind visits of these brethren are quite an encouragement to all of us. We are hoping to have Dr. David Warren visiting next year. He worked at HCU for a while and now he is working as the professor for ancient Biblical languages at Faulkner University. He really wanted to come this year, but things didn’t work out well. For sure he will be visiting the school next year. We are truly blessed with the relationship we have in Christ through which we are able to work together and encourage each other.

Campaign Week:  
This campaign week ended with a Preacher’s Fellowship in Pydikonda. This is another success story of our school. Preacher’s Fellowship is a mission program that has an objective of increasing the fellowship among the brotherhood in that area also to discuss a Biblical topic that will benefit the preachers as well as the local congregation. This program was lead by one of our faculty, brother Rama Raju. Six preachers spoke on the subject ‘Edification of the Church.’

We are planning for a campaign week at the middle of November in the state of Orissa. We are hoping to establish gospel campaign in that area to invite the believers to go to Bible school and establish a long term relationship with them. We are praying for God to strengthen our faith through which we would continue to reach the unreached millions. Certainly the gospel is to be widely preached in this part of Andhra Pradesh.  

Gospel Tools: (Bibles, Hymn Books, Bicycles, Lanterns) 
We are privileged to distribute these gospel tools for our graduates who are striving for his cause. Thankfully for our graduates, not all but some students, were able receive these tools to use them to proclaim the word of God and building the congregations. With the help of the individual donors they were able to have them. These tools are very useful for the preachers working in remote areas where there won’t be 24 hours of electricity as well as there is no transportation and the facility is very limited. Recently our brother ‘Yosepu’ from Devarapalli area received a bicycle. Indeed it is very helpful for him because he is not able to take care of all his transportation expenses to travel in the hill area to proclaim the word of God. Right now it is raining in their area. When everything settles down we are planning for a one week gospel campaign there. He really wants us to come, he is sort concerned about the safety of us who are going to visit with him. Since his place is in a very remote area, we have to be watchful for mosquitoes which might cause serious health problems. 

Prayer Request:   “I know that after I am gone fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock” Acts 20:29 

Now a days, in our secular country of India, several people are embracing Christianity. It is not making quite a difference in the percentage of Christian religion, however, some religious groups are so worried by seeing the thousands of people who are accepting Jesus as the Savior. These gradual conversions are causing fear in the hearts of those religious people, which is why they want to stir up people by imposing certain laws to threaten the Christians. Unfortunately several of these conversions are into denominational groups. 

Jerry’s Visit: 
Brother Jerry & sister Paula Bates will be visiting us from the 8th to the 15th of September. On the 8th they will be visiting Skinner’s Garden, on the 9th they shall be worshipping at Bikkavolu Church of Christ and on the 10th he will start teaching at Visakha Valley Bible College and leaves on the 15th from Visakhapatnam. He has done a great job teaching the same class to the last batch. Now we are looking forward to his class on ‘Leadership’. 

Thank you note:
We humbly thank you for your kind support for running the Bible College (Preacher Training School) successfully. Without your esteemed help we cannot imagine our self doing this wonderful Lord’s work at Visakhapatnam. We do appreciate your prayers for us. It is really overwhelming to see you brethren encouraging us from the other side of the globe to the rescue the lost souls on this side of this globe. This is just marvelous, and truly the love of God is compelling you all to extend your love in order share the love of God. Kindly convey our (director, students & faculty) heartfelt gratitude to the congregation. This is the reason for this good Bible school program. We appreciate your concern and trust in us. We are certainly thankful to God for His providence too. 

Work Report: 
Number of people baptized in these months through our ministry: 18
Denominational preachers restored: 2
Gospel meetings conducted – 18
Weekend Campaign – 2
Gospel tracts distributed – 24,000
Doors Knocked - 687
Held the Bible n.of Studies - 73
New Congregations Established - 3  

In Christ & His service, 

John Dean & Sameul Raju Muppidi
Skinner's Garden Bible School
Visakha Valley Bible College
Church of Christ
Andhra Pradesh,  INDIA

The Work Is Bearing Fruit...

David Raju and his wife after baptismGreetings to you all from VVBC, India. I hope everything is going good with you. We are all doing okay. The hot weather has been very severe, because of which several older people are dying. By the grace of God we are all doing fine. The heat index is over 100 F on average for the last 3 weeks. It will continue for another couple of weeks. Days are going to be terrible for us. We sure need some rains, if not it will be the third consecutive no rain fall year.

God blessed us with some amazing results through our mission efforts in this part of Andhra Pradesh. Two students were instrumental in bringing these amazing results. Two new congregations established at two different places. We praise God as our graduates show lot of interest to participate in the evangelism programs conducted by our school. This truly shows the evangelistic nature of our students & graduates.

DVS Prakash praying for new brethrenCampaign week: We had our Evangelism campaign at two places during this month. The results of it are the establishment of the congregations. During these gospel campaigns we did door knocking, tract distribution, Bible study and gospel meetings. This program is specifically aimed to proved practical education to the students. This helps the students to learn some practical issue which they come across in their real time ministry.

Bible Classes: We are happy to see one of our students, Pydiraju, holding a gospel campaign in a village called ‘Kovvada’ in Vijayanagaram District. He wants to start preaching there. In order to do that he wanted to have a start, so with the help of the local friends he held Bible Classes for three days and two gospel meetings on two nights. We were blessed to be part of these classes to encourage this student in establishing a congregation there. Suresh, Rama Rao, two of our graduates, led us into the streets Tract received and readsinging and distributing the gospel tracts to the villagers. We had some Bible studies; one of them was with a denominational preacher. This man was so kind to offer a place to stay. He has very nice personality. Our study with him helped us to understand that he is not thoroughly educated in the Bible. We advised him to take some classes at our school; since he realized the need for him to study more to understand the word of God better/appropriately. Samuel Raju, Director of the School has taught the lesson plan of salvation and John Dean taught about the Holy Spirit. Classes were successful because we have 100% attention from the audience. In the middle of the class we noticed some who are without Bibles. We truly felt so happy to distribute 6 Bibles to those who do not have one.

Vamsee Bhushanam preachingGospel Meetings: Besides the regular gospel meetings in various places, we held two meetings, most of our faculty and students were present. David Raju’s village is totally with idol worshippers, some of them are his relatives. He desperately wanted his villagers to hear about the true living God and His plan of salvation from sin. So, he invited all the faculty to come and hold the gospel meeting. Brother Vamsee, Vijaya Kumar and Director, Samuel Raju, preached during the gospel meeting. We had good audience. In fact, with the help of the loud speakers, the message has been delivered to almost all the villagers. Some of them who were sitting in the porches and were listening to the gospel being preached. This is the first ever gospel meeting conducted by the Church. With this, one can imagine how many villages are still not reached with the true John Dean distributing Biblesgospel. Another Gospel meeting, in a place called Kovvada, has given us the opportunity to announce about the lord’s Church that will be gathering every Sunday. 

Conversion: 
“ Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.  For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.” (Rom 10:1-3)

David Raju is one of our students. He is zealous about learning the Word of God. He loves his parents. He wanted them to be baptized into the Church, this happened when he learned that the way they were baptized was not according to the scripture and realized that they were not added to His church. So, his humble plead with his parents has lead them to be baptized into Christ for the remission of their sins, and the Lord added them to the Church.

Since the time his parents were converted, he focused on his wife and encouraged her to consider re-baptism. At first she wasn’t really in favor of him, but when he tried to explain her the scripture with the help of another preacher friend and conveyed his commitment to be re-baptism then she came forward. On the day they wanted to be baptized, they invited the school Director & faculty to come and hold Bible class & Gospel meetings for two days. Taking that as an opportunity, we spent time by knocking the door and distributing the gospel tracts and inviting the villagers to attend the gospel meetings. In fact David Raju wanted his villagers to hear the good news and believe in Jesus and accept Him as their Savior. We hear from David Raju regularly about the developments with the new congregation. We are excited to hear that they are meeting every Sunday regularly and some of David Raju’s (Preacher) family, and a couple of his family friends are attending the worship service.

Along with David Raju, his sister was also added to the Church. Moreover, brother Vijaya Kumar, who is also one of our students, wants to be baptized. David Raju & Vijaya Kumar believed that they were baptized according to the scripture, but they never realized the actuality until the time our faculty, including brother Chuck Ramseur, discussed the right way of baptism, process of it and the result of being added to the Church by the Lord. For sure this has opened of their eyes and compelled them to come forward to be baptized. We give honor to our Lord for saving these 4 precious souls.    

Prayer Request: 

1. Kindly pray for brother Rama Raju’s family, who lost his father in-law.

2. Kindly pray for the First Graduation Exercise of the Master’s Class, as 9 will be receiving their MBS Diplomas.

3. Pray for the weather. It has been very dry for the last 7 months. If it continues it will be the 3^rd dry year for us, and the cost of living would become very, very high.

4. Pray for our travels & mission activities that our labor would bring fruit.

“How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?  How will they preach unless they are sent? ” (Rom. 10:14-15) 

Equipping & Evangelism is our basic goal in running the Bible School. Equipping the men with the word of God and reaching out to the lost millions with the good news of our Savior. Indeed, this kind of approach is what required in this part of India. Since there are so many places where the gospel has not been carried out by the Church to these places. This situation shows the desperate need of a Preacher Training School like Visakha Valley Bible College, in Visakhapatnam. 

Work Report: 
Number of people baptized in this month through our ministry: 12
Denominational preachers restored: 1
Gospel meetings conducted – 6
Weekend Campaign – 2 in 3 villages
Gospel tracts distributed – 16,000
Doors Knocked - 430
Held the Bible Studies - 21
New Congregations Established - 2

We are looking forward to our first Master’s Class graduation on the 6th of July, according to brother Garry Fallis, brother Denton Landon will be coming with him. We are exited about this.

We thank you brethren for supporting the Bible School. We continue to do our very best. We thank our God for congregations like you who are backing the Lord's work in India. Your kindness helps us rescue some lost souls. As the preacher students go out and establish more congregations, many lost will be rescued. We are looking forward to see such a wonderful result from our combined efforts.

Please convey our salutations to the brethren at Strickland, especially to the Elders and the Preacher. Please continue your prayers for us as we also do for you. If you want to know more about our school or any questions kindly contact us. 

In Christ, 
John Dean M
For the Visakha Valley Bible College

Student Studies With Parents...

Dear brethren,

Greetings to you in the precious name of Lord Jesus Christ our savior. By the grace of God we are all doing fine. Hope all is well with you. We are thankful to our God who is enabling us to continue doing his ministry in our part of India. We have 15 students who are regular to the school. We are happy to say that they will be completing this course study by April 2013. All of our students are uplifted in their faith so much through the teaching of various subjects by our faculty. Our students are so blessed to be in this school, of course they remark our school very highly too.

Short Course: Brother Chuck Ramseur visited with us for a week. During his visit he taught the ‘Epistle to the Hebrews’ to the undergraduate students. As usual, this trip has been very productive than previous one. His first trip had been quite bit of learning since everything was new and it was his first visit to teach at an extension school of BVBID.

We were excited about Chuck coming to Visakha for the second time which really helped us to work together for the betterment of the school. He is very mindful of the school in Visakha, we appreciate him for that. Our students had a good time of learning Hebrews from the audience perspective. Chuck has a done a marvelous job of teaching the Epistle to the Hebrews in this perspective so that the students would get the exact message from the epistle. He spent lot of time in explaining the text rather than applying it to the present audience. It was a different learning experience for me as well. Chuck has done a review before the start of every class that helped the students to stay on the same page along with the instructor. Regular memory work and the quizzes have helped the students to learn more from the epistle. It is very important to any student to rightly understand the text before he applies it to himself or teach it to somebody so that they would apply it to themselves. Understanding the epistle to the Hebrews is just like any other book in the Bible. Chuck’s way to teaching it by emphasizing the key words and their connection & relation between them throughout the epistle was marvelous. Especially he mentioned the text coded from Psalms to show how much more blessed we are through Jesus Christ who is superior above all in this universe. He affirmed to the students about the greatest salvation we have in Jesus Christ and the great hope receiving the heavenly Jerusalem.  He did a great job compared to his first visit & teaching. Students have learned so much. They did a good job in writing their final exams; most of them have good grades. We pray that his regular visits would be a blessing to the school and to all of us.

Zeal for towards his loved ones: David Raju, He is one of our diligent students in the current batch. He lives in a village which is 40 kms from Visakhapatnam. He was a Hindu believer. He heard about Jesus and obeyed him by being baptized into Christ. After he became a Christian he wanted his parents to learn about God and obey the Lord. Since they are very old he really wanted them to obey the truth before it is too late. While his curiosity of saving his parents was growing wild, he could not resist himself from teaching them about the plan of salvation and about their need to repent of their sins and becoming children of God. His regular teachings finally motivated them to repent of their sins and come forward to be washed themselves in the blood of Jesus Christ. This wonderful event has taken place at VVBC during the first week of this month. Brother Eric Ramseur witnessed this overwhelming event. After they confessed that Jesus Christ is the son of God, they were baptized by John Dean for the remission of their sins. David Raju has the happiest moment in his life. Tears ran out of David Raju’s eyes during the baptism of his parents really denoting the joy he had from the fulfillment of his long waited desire.

We have scheduled a weekend gospel campaign during the end of the first of May. We are very much looking forward to spending some study time with those who are learning about God. We hope the word of God will be received in gladness and souls will be added to the Church. Certainly there is a great future for the Lord’s church in this village. This only possible through some enthusiastic preachers like David Raju, who is very zealous for the Lord. We have few other men who are very eager to proclaim the word and are strong to live according to it.

Needs: Dear brethren please be mindful of the needs for the preachers in this area, especially to those who are going to school and soon will be full time preachers. A bicycle & lantern with some Bibles at the time of graduation is a wonderful gift that we can offer to them to help with their mission to preach the word.

Summer: Here the weather is getting heated up. Right now the temperatures in some areas are over 95 F. We do not have rains from last 6 months. Due to that, ground water levels are going down and down, with the relative affect on the prices of electricity and vegetables which has been a burden to the common man. Of course the hike of the prices is an uprising problem in the world over, but for a common man like a preacher who doesn’t make so much from very poor congregations it is really struggle. Kindly pray for the preachers in that area who are honestly serving the Lord besides the difficulties.

Future Preachers’ Training Camp: While I was at Bear Valley during my visit in 2010, I was blessed to be at the Church who hosted the FPTC. I was really impressed with that program and wanted to try that in India too. When Dr. Dennis Jones, president of HCU, visited Skinner’s Garden on the 9th of February, he inaugurated the program. We have scheduled this week long FPTC program starting from the 4th of June till the 10th. Since this is our first effort, we would like to invite the preachers’ sons who are over the age of 13. This program would certainly help them to become leaders in the future. Kindly pray for the success of this camp.

Thank you note: Dear brethren we are thankful to the brethren at Strickland Church of Christ, especially to the elders for their trust and charity with which we are able to run the school successfully. We continue to remember them in our daily prayers and thank our heavenly God for their great role in seeking and saving the lost in India. Yes, India is a growing wild in religious perspective with the TV media well spread. Everywhere the entire denominational groups in India, especially in the state of Andhra Pradesh, have been spreading the man made doctrines. These situations need well trained young man who teach the only doctrine which was once for all delivered. We pray that our combined efforts produce more effective preachers to spread good news & the right doctrine to the lost millions in India. 

Work Report: 
Number of people baptized in this month through our ministry: 6
Denominational preachers restored: 1
Gospel meetings conducted – 6
Weekend Campaign – 1
Gospel tracts distributed - 1200
Doors Knocked - 135
Held the Bible Studies - 21

We thank you all so much for your concern for the Lord's work in India. Our calender year has been so busy, kindly pray for our travelling to various places. We thank you all so much for being a part of this great Lord's work in India. 

Samuel Raju & John Dean Muppidi
Visakha Valley Bible College
Church of Christ
Andhra Pradesh,  INDIA

VVBC Activities Show Growth...

Dear Brethren,

Greetings from Visakha Valley Bible College to you in the name of Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. By the grace of God we are all doing fine and the school work is going on well.

We were thrilled to hear that the Elders at Strickland Church of Christ have come forward to oversee the Visakha Valley Bible School. We have known these brethren from a long time, in fact me and my father have visited this congregation several times. This congregation has been involved in supporting the Skinner’s Garden work under the oversight of the Elders of West Corinth Church of Christ from a long time. They helped us buy bicycles, lanterns, sewing machines, Bibles and other evangelistic needs. Their part in evangelizing the world is commendable.

It was my pleasure visiting with them in the summer 2010 when I was given an opportunity to give a work report. I took advantage of that and mentioned about our new school Visakha Valley Bible College and our association with Bear Valley. I didn’t have much to talk to them about any more than the presentation, but the later developments encouraged them to come forward to oversee the Bible School work. We appreciate Jerry & Paula for their part in encouraging the elders to take up this new responsibility. In deed we feel like it’s God’s providence. We pray that our relationships will be built up stronger for the betterment of the Lord’s work in India especially in the northeastern region of the state of Andhra Pradesh.

We are encouraged so much with the growth rate of the students, as it is well aware a few numbers of the students always stay little behind despite their hard work. However most of the students are up to date in completing their assignments and tests. 

Preachers’ Fellowship Meeting: 
We are very happy with the evangelistic efforts by our students. We have a student named Uday, who always wanted to attend the short classes, invited us for the preachers’ Fellowship meeting at their place. He wanted us to teach on the subject ‘The Work of the Church.’ He wanted the local congregation to understand about their responsibility towards the fellow Christians and taking the gospel to the lost community in their village. We had most of our graduates attend this Preachers’ Fellowship meeting. We praised God when 3 of those graduates who spoke on the subject encouraged the local congregation to seriously think about charity and evangelism.

Paul Raju’s health condition: Paul Raju, one of our old students had appendicitis pain and had to go through the surgery. By the grace of God everything went well, and he is recovering. He is working in the Viskhapatnam city only. He is one of those who registered for the new Master’s Class which shall be starting July 2012, if that is Lord’s will. 

Special Bible Class on the Book of Revelation: 
DVS Prakash, one of our graduates of the previous batch, is a zealous preacher. He never wanted to take a back seat if a situation comes where he has to deal with that. Denominational groups have been teaching about the premillennialism by misusing text from the Book of Revelation. So, he never wanted to delay approaching the school for help. Brother Vamsee Bushanam, who teaches the Book of Revelation in the school, came forward to help this graduate and the congregation. The local congregation decided to hold a 1 day Special Bible Class on the book of Revelation every month. By the grace of God the congregation is learning the true word as it is written while the speaker is rightly dividing the word of God.   

Applications for the Masters Class:
We are blessed to have another term of Master Classes starting in July this year. We are anxiously looking forward for the start of new batch. We have a list of 16 students who shall be attending enrolling for the Master Class. 

Short Class: 
Brother Chuck Ramseur will be visiting with us for the next week. During his visit he shall be teaching the ‘Epistle to the Hebrews’ with the undergraduate students. We are excited about Chuck coming to Visakha for the second time which really helps us to work together for the betterment of the School. He is very mindful of the school in Visakha. We pray that his visit would be a blessing to all of us. 

Brother Irven Skinner’s Visit: 
Brother Irven Skinner has been a missionary to India since 1999. During his recent visit he arrived at Visakhapatnam Airport and wanted to spend a couple of days teaching the students at Visakha Valley Bible College. He really loves teaching the Bible. This time he encouraged the Indian preachers to live their lives like a light. One of the lessons he taught was, “ brethren, do not grow weary of doing good,” 2 Thess 3:13, encouraging the preachers to always abound in the Lord to do good things. Our students enjoyed class. Irven Skinner also taught for 3 hrs on the next day during the local congregations meeting we held on Saturday at VVBC facility. We had a great time sharing the Lord’s word. As a result, 3 came forward to be baptized. We rejoiced with those who accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. Brother Irven said, regarding the Bible School work, he would like to come next time and spend more time with the students. 

Thank you note: 
We are thankful to the brethren at Strickland Church of Christ for choosing to be the overseeing church for the Bible School, to guide us spiritually for the betterment of the Church in India. We continue to strive for our common goal and purpose, which is evangelizing the lost millions. We appreciate all of your prayers for us and your financial support. Kindly write us back if you want to know more about the Bible School work. We appreciate brother Bob Turner, Ralph Williams and Jerry Bates for their encouragement in running the school successfully.

Thanking you in Christian love, 

Sameul Raju & John Dean Muppidi
Visakha Valley Bible College
Church of Christ
Andhra Pradesh,  INDIA