GUECKEDOU BEAR VALLEY BIBLE INSTITUTE ACTIVITY OPERATIONS REPORT FOR MARCH AND APRIL 2025
Greetings to you, our supporters and all interested persons of the above named institution. It has been a while since our last activity report which was for the month of February this year. Usually, under normal conditions every month's report is done before this time. But the challenges of April which included an abrupt relocation of students lodging to a new facility, evangelistic activities and especially health problems overwhelmed us resulting in this delay for which we apologise and promise to do our best next time. But despite these challenges, we are standing firm and all is improving well to the glory of God.
The activities of the months of March and April included lectures, congregational follow ups, a gospel seminar and some great evangelistic teams work with amazing results of conversions. Follow us for the details under the sub-headings below!
Classroom and Disruption of Students Dormitory:
We started the month of March with brother Antoine Fassa Tolno who took on the students with First Corinthians. A week later classes were interrupted because the school house was sold without our notice.
Our contact host was not the owner of the premises, and he had not informed the house owner of the rent contract even though our yearly payment was in advance. Said house was one of 2 compounds we rented side by side, but now loose one and had to transfer to another building. This took us additional time before brother Antoine completed the book of 1 Corinthians.
Following this was the book of Acts with brother François Tengiano and this course lasted to the close of March. Afterwards, we had a 2 weeks break for the students to settle some farming activities.
Later, brother Tolno again took them on a special course, Stewardship after another week of revision followed by the third quarter exams. The results of these classes and exams were satisfactory.
Follow ups to Congregations / Personal Evangelism:
During the months of March and April our staff and students made follow ups to various congregations to exhort and strengthen the brethren. During this exercise we converted 6 and 5 souls in March and April respectively.
Men's Gospel Seminar:
There was a gospel seminar organised by the men of the Gueckedou and surrounding churches. It was held on March 28th to 30th in the sous prefecture town of Owet Djiba with a good turn up of evangelists though not all . There were 2 nights of teaching and a day of house to house evangelism which resulted in 9 baptisms on the climax day of Sunday, March 30th.
Our next 3 days men's gospel seminar is scheduled to commence on next June, the 28th in the village of Nongoa-pombo.
EVANGELISTIC WORKS:
There were 2 sets of evangelistic activities carried on during the period under review and all were very successful to the glory of God! Regular readers of our reports know that these were initiated through the evangelistic ambition of our able Coordinator, Steven Ashcraft who himself will sometimes be on the field with us such as during the activities of point "A" below.
A. Crossborder Evangelism:
Beginning on the 5th of April, evangelists from Guinea, Liberia and Côté d'ivoire started assembling in the border town of Lola, (a prefecture headquarters of Lola) some 265 klm from Gueckedou but closer to Liberia and Côté d'ivoire to evangelise that community. In all, we were 11 men including bro. Steven who had proposed and with whom we planned the program while he was still in the US. The good Lord led us to a certain quarter (Bellevue) chef and his wife whose heart the Lord opened not only to accept the gospel, but to accommodate us until our departure on Monday, the 13th April. Every day, we did a house to house evangelism in groups of 3 and 4 followed by an open air preaching during the night hours. By Sunday, the 13th of April we converted 19 souls. Then on the following Sundays, April 20th and 27th, using the opportunity of my stay in N'zerekore to attend to my wife who had been ill and evacuated there at the regional hospital, went back to help the new brethren. Again we baptised 4 more persons. Including that follow up, we have baptised 23 persons on the Lola cross border evangelism mission.
B. Evangelistic Teams:
During the months of March and April, there were several evangelistic teams that went out to do mission work and there were many successes despite the many challenges during some of the campaigns.
In the Conakry area, brothers Francis and François are in a constant struggle to strengthen and expand the Kingdom borders with extreme hunger. Often, the grounds of residents in the urban areas coupled with their Islamic dominance is not as fertile as the territories of rural areas and so our brothers are facing a tough challenge to convert souls. But since our prospects are usually willing to listen to the gospel, we have hope that someday there will be an increase in harvest.
Now in the rural areas especially around Gueckedou some 6 teams including the Bear Valley staff and students conducted the following successful campaigns in the villages of:
1. Yende-bawa of Temessadou Djigbo - 12 baptisms on 13/3/25
2. Sembezou of Tekoulo - 4 baptisms on 23/3/25
3. Memessadou - 8 baptisms on 1/4/25
4. Bandakoro of Temessadou Djigbo - 15 baptisms on 8/4/25
5. Wamandou of Temessadou Djigbo - 5 baptisms on 13/4/25
6. Koumasan of Tekoulo - 19 baptisms on 13/4/25
7. Yillasandou of Temessadou Djigbo - 11 baptisms on 23/4/25
8. Bédou Daye - 5 baptisms on 13/4/25
9. Kolooma of Tekoulo - 8 baptisms on 27/4/25.
These are 12 campaigns that planted 9 churches when 72 souls obeyed Christ at their initial preaching. Follow up works during March and April yielded another 19 baptisms making a total of 91 souls for the evangelistic campaigns by the Guinea Evangelistic Teams in March and April.
Before l conclude, please permit me to share an interesting event that occurred on the field during one of the campaigns. It is an event that proves again that God's word is always true.
The people of the first village, Yende-bawa of Temessadou Djibo had long wished to serve God and had made several appeals to the only available "people of God" around them, the New Apostolic and the Assemblies of God / Protestant churches to no avail. None of these church leaders accepted these people's request to plant a church in their village, rather the villagers were required to attend one in any of the centers where their buildings are erected. For the fear of embarrassment should one of them die and not get a church or pastor to identify with them as in the past, they decided this time to call on the New Apostolic Pastor in the nearby village. But the Pastor demanded that a formal letter requesting admission be written and submitted first.
Ok, this they did and on his way to submit the letter, the messenger met in another village on the way with one of our team leaders, brother Saa Many Koundouno. They greeted each other, and since they recalled their long-time acquaintance, began to inquire about the current business or work of each other.
On hearing that bro Saa Many was now an evangelist and on a mission to survey an area to preach the gospel, immediately pulled out the letter and submitted it to the evangelist saying, "here you are, have it". He made a brief explanation of their desire to worship God. This is like the Macedonian call (Actes 16:9) and the truth "So that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him, and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us" - Acts 17:27.
Yes, in the next 2 days the church was planted when 12 were baptised.
Thank you for your courage to read through.
Conclusion:
We are grateful to Almighty God for His grace and we truly appreciate your every support in this all important business of preacher training and soul saving.
Men are being trained and churches are planted. Thank you for supporting us to make Heaven rejoice.
Of all the personal evangelism, the cross border evangelistic mission and that of the evangelistic teams work as well as the men's gospel seminar held in March and April we have planted 10 churches - converted 134 persons to Christ!
God is to be glorified !!
Thanks again and may God's grace continue to accompany us all.
Francis, Director