Dear Brethren,
Greetings to you from Visakha Valley Bible College in the precious name of Lord Jesus Christ, We are grateful to God for His kindness. Hope all is well with you, and you had a safe return to Denver. I bet you have been busy, spending every minute wisely for the benefit of the extension schools across the world. It is really wonderful to see the brethren at Bear Valley operating Extension school all across the world. We are privileged to be part of their team of producing effective communicators of the gospel.
Fresh Batch:
It is our esteemed joy to celebrate the first graduation exercises of our 16 graduates of the Class of 2011. Now, we are geared up for equipping another batch of Bible Students. Actually, we have received so many applications, from which we finalized 14 so far. We shall be limiting our student number to 16, like we did with the previous batch. We have news that other students will be regular students from next onwards. Now days denominational Bible colleges are offering several packages to the enrolled students. So, it is taking some time for the people who are applying for admission into our college. However, we have given opportunity for all the applicants to come and spend some days to understand how the training system is like. This has given very good results, because of that we have 14 students enrolled. Some of these students have come from a denominational back ground.
Entrance Exam:
An Entrance exam/test and an interview after the exam is something the enrolling students have to go through. It gives us an idea for the instructors about the student’s level in Bible knowledge. This test also contains some general knowledge question, which would help us to understand the student’s social awareness. After the exam is over when we go through their answers, it clearly discloses the student’s Bible knowledge. We have some students coming from a denominational background; with the help of test in the future we would correct the students during the class, of course we do not have to particularly spare time for that, since everything will be covered during the classes. We noticed several who do not know about Divinity/Godhead, Baptism is a must for salvation, Jesus our mediator so our prayers should go through him etc., the denominational world in India teaches false doctrine about the mentioned issues, which drives away the listeners to the farthest extent from truth. It is really a tough task for the preachers of sound doctrine to correct it and get it accepted.
Faculty Meeting:
We had couple of Director& Faculty meetings during the last two months. We thought about meeting twice as we had to discuss several things and plan for the future school year. With the experience we acquired, we have come up with a approach to implement for providing more enhanced education/training to the students. We had exchanged our ideas/suggestion, of course advises have been exchanged too. Finally, we all agreed to work together as a team with newer ideas to train these men as effective communicators of the gospel. When I mentioned about Chuck’s mission to enlarge the Library, they were all thrilled, especially when they heard about the number of books he gathered for the school.
Financial Statement:
Attached are the financial statements of for the month of May and June. We are thankful to the brethren at Bear Valley and also to the brethren at Lake Huston Church of Christ. Indeed we are thankful to brother Steve Wiseman and Ralph Williams who highly recommended our school.
We bought a Spiral binding machine, this will be used to spiral bind the notes that we give to the students. So far we do not have this facility, preserving the material and keeping it in order was a problem.
Campaign Week:
We had the final campaign week with the previous batch of students. Besides the participation of the students, faculty of the Bible school under the guidance of our Bible College Director, we held 3 Gospel campaigns in three different places. We had the opportunity to study with several individuals and families; we also conducted 8 gospel meetings during this time. Through our efforts there are 18 people were added to the Church during last two months. During the month of June we had a Preachers’ Fellowship meeting in Srikakulum District, which is about 120 kms from Visakhapatnam. We had a thrilling experience when we held this meeting under the shadow of trees. Two people were added to the church on this day.
Short course:
We are looking forward for the upcoming visit of Chuck Ramseur. He shall be teaching ‘Christian Evidences.’ I am in regular correspondence with him. We made the necessary arrangements for his arrival. He sent us the material that he will be using while teaching the class. He is way in advanced prepared with the Test questions as well. We are excited about his visit to India.
Master Classes:
Jerry Bates and another teacher Greg Hamlin will be coming in the month of September. I learned from him only yesterday that Greg will be teaching two short courses (Scheme of Redemption, The book of Acts), while Jerry teaches two Master Class subjects. Things are coming pretty hand in hand as we communicate regularly.
Brother Gary Fallis is suppose to come in the month of Jan’12, due to his busy schedule Denton Landon will be coming in his place. Both of them will be coming in the month of July’12 for the first graduation exercises program of the Master’s Class.
Thank you note:
Dear brethren we thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to evangelize India, we pray that our combined efforts would bring many to Christ and New Testament Churches be established, and the established congregation may be edified.
All of us at Visakha Valley Bible College are thanking you for your kindness to help run the school to evangelize our countrymen. We continue to extend our efforts beside any kind of difficulties, to reach our mission of evangelizing India and edifying the local congregations.