1.0 Introduction
The Lord has been taking care of us to date in the face of a mixed package of events in the unfolding history of the institution.Our courses are progressing slowly with the eighth course almost complete. We have had sad news of the deaths of two preachers and two preachers’ wives in Zimbabwe in the months of July and August. This has been so trying to the preachers’ fraternity. There has been exciting news from different congregations on the progress of our students. The churches in Zimbabwe had a series of lectureships and gospel meetings in the month of August. We are looking forward to the resuscitation of the work in Machipanda in the month of September. We have abandoned the raising of broilers due to the increased cost of production and are now moving to our hatchery plans. There is currently a cabbage crop in our garden alongside the covo vegetables. Your school now has a patron for governance purposes. All the above items are covered in this report.
2.0 Curriculum progress
Three of our recent courses have been Life Of Christ, The Old Testament Law and The New Testament Church which is coming to completion soon. Our students have been doing well in many of these courses with a few who need to be assisted here and there. In the process of our learning you cannot avoid the obvious excitement that is evident in our students as they discover so many new things in their journey of faith. The eagerness in them is encouraging and keeps our energy high. We pray that it may continue to the end of the course.
3.0 Our Condolences
The church has been covered in a dark cloud in recent months. Two Zimbabwean Preachers and two Zimbabwean Preachers’ wives have passed away. Brother T Gwinya who once worked as a Boarding Master and Board chair at MSOP had a long history of a terminal illness that terminated in his promotion to eternal glory. He survived with four children and grandchildren. He passed away after an operation at the Herbert Chitepo Hospital in Mutare. We continue to remember him for his contribution to the church.
Sister Nyamanhindi passed away in Harare. Sister Nyamanhindi was married to Brother Nyamanhindi. The couple had a long history of service in the church as preachers. She was buried in Rusape where the couple resided.
Sister Gomwe passed away also in the month of July after battling with cancer for a while. She was married to Brother Witness Gomwe who is an elder at Chikanga phase 2 in Mutare. Brother and sister Gomwe have worked in different capacities in the church for a long time. He is well known for his work with the WBS. We continue to solicit prayers from you for this brother who has survived such pain of nursing his wife in pain for a long period.
We did have yet another pain of losing another young preacher Moses Maulani from Murehwa. He had battled with sugar diabetes since his tender age. We are grateful that God had given him to serve that long in the church. He was serving as the preacher at Cherutombo congregation in Marondera at the time of his death. He was laid to rest on the 7th of August at his rural home in Makunde village in Murehwa.
May all our soldiers of Christ Rest In Eternal Peace as we wait for the coming of the Righteous One to decide our fate. Shall we pray for the bereaved families
4.0 Student Preachers’ Progress
We are excited to note that the student preachers have been engaged in different congregational activities in different congregations. We continue to encourage these congregations to involve them in worship, hospital and sick visits, funerals and other activities. To date their performance has been awesome. The preacher in Messika has given very good reports on sermon delivery and Bible classes by the IBBVM students. Both the women and men have been doing so well according to their activity forms to date and we are excited with the reports that we have been receiving. We pray that God may continue to do wonders with his vessels.
5.0 The Upcoming Outreach
We had many introductory courses to a student preacher from the month of January 2025. We are excited that many of these courses have been yielding excellent results. Some of these involve our recent survey by our student Elidio Selemane from Manica. We, as a school, tasked him to do a research on the remains of the Machipanda congregation so that we can resuscitate it. He has been working together with the Manica elders in this survey and the school has on its calendar an outreach and re-establishment of the first congregation in Manica Province on the 12th to the 14th of September. The congregation had a church stand which has to have its paperwork sought to avoid apparent controversy with one of the sons of brother Jesinawo who happens to be one of its pioneers. There still remain some members who were no longer attending anywhere and one family that was commuting to Manica for services. Our theme for this outreach will be branded, “REDIGGING THE WELLS” from Genesis 26. The school has plans to put one of our student to work with that congregation under the oversight of the IBBVM until plans are made to have a full time minister for it.
6.0 The Hatchery
Your school has recently abandoned the broiler project because of its high production cost. The cost of purchasing and raising each bird has been increasing lately. The total cost of raising a bird has been +/- US$3.95 when the birds are having a market value of US$4. Because of that, the school has ordered three crates of the Black Australorp eggs for hatching for a beginning. The other crate will be taken to a reputable hatchery in Zimbabwe to place a caution measure since it will be our first time to use our incubator. We look forward to having our parent crop from these eggs. We are hoping the hatching should be complete as we get into the second week in the month of September.
7.0 Progress on our Garden
Our vegetable garden has been doing fairly well with the covo vegetables selling at a low pace. We remain grateful for its contribution to our income. We now have the cabbage crop in our garden as well. It has been doing pretty well to date. Our current challenge has been with the running water in our tapes which is barely in our tapes. This water runs in our tapes once after six days per week and only runs for less than an hour. However, we have two unprotected wells in the compound. These have so much water to irrigate our garden. We may need an electrical or solar powered pump and two 1000 liter containers or a 5000 liter tank to improve our watering so that we can improve the quantity of our yield and have a quality vegetable. Using tins has been too risky and laborious. We would be very grateful for partners who might be willing to partner with us in the project.
8.0 Our New Patron
In our recent report, we announced that we would need to improve our running of the school business. Since our school is still young we need a patron who will assist with checks and balances on procedures and decision making. With the set criteria, it was unanimously decided that we will have Doctor Campion Mugweni of the Churches in Zimbabwe as our patron. The process has been done and we now have Doctor Mugweni as our first college patron. He will serve in this capacity from January 2026 to December 2028. We hope this will improve the accuracy we need in decision making. Brother Mugweni has been involved in a lot of corporate governance and church administration activities to date. We hope his experience will greatly add value to your institution
9.0 Lectureships and other Meetings
The month of August was crowded with different meetings. Theophilus Tanhera attended the Bindura youths meeting and was one of the speakers. With him was Domingos Lucas, one of our students. Domingos Lucas also took youths from his congregation to another meeting with the youths in Chimoio. Owen Marange attended the Zimbabwe men’s annual lectureship that was held at Bear Valley Bible Institute in Gweru. All these meetings are of importance to our students and staff and would be grateful if there should be funding for the school to attend these meetings. The meeting in Gweru addressed some sticky areas in the churches and it is important for your school to be abreast with these.
10. Meet Our Students
Domingos Lucas Domingos António
Domingos Lucas Domingos António was born on 12 August 2003. His parents are Lucas Domingos António and Mónica Pedro Balushes. Lucas Domingos Antonio is also our student. Domingos Lucas Antonio completed his High School 12th Class in Messica High School. He then moved into teacher training at Chibata Teachers training institute. The family comes from Chimoio District in Manica Province. Domingos is now a Mathematics teacher in the district of Manica. He resides in Messica. Domingos Lucas is married to Sara Jorge Felisberto and the family is with one kid Diogo Domingos Lucas Antonio. Since 2023 he has been a teacher at Chitunga High School, Manica District,Mavonde Administrative to date. He is the youngest student we have in our intake. The young man loves his work and is so excited with what he is doing. We are praying that he becomes one of the greatest preacher in his generation.
Conclusion
The introductory courses are coming to a close on our curriculum. Joy has been part of us as we witness growth and progress in the development of our students. We are yet to witness more of it in the upcoming outreach in Machipanda which we can’t wait to experience. The church in Zimbabwe needs a lot of prayers after several losses of its soldiers of the cross. We continue to call upon different partners to partner with us in various areas of their interest. We have areas that need a lot of assistance as we progress with the production of preachers of the gospel in Mozambique.