Mozambique school starts new year strong
1.0 Introduction
The year has just started with a high note. We started with our students from the previous year almost all coming back to continue with their studies. The IBBVM has received holiday reports from our students and the preachers in various congregations. The reports are generally pleasing. We have also received seven applications from young men in Chimoio and Messika. The school did invite them all to interviews and 5 turned up. The school now has a new teacher Bothwell Gutu. He is a graduate of MSOP 2023. The school has a dream of preparing a lunch meal for the students. We still have our Black Astrolop birds on the campus and they are doing well. Your school is now registered and operating legally. The successful students from last year will be attached to different congregations in Manica and Messika districts.
2.0 Student Body From Previous Year
Your school started with a total of 19 students (15 men and 4 women). One of our students was posted to a remote area far away from Manica Chimoio and found it difficult to attend the classes every weekend. One student left after an unclear illness that affected his head. Some dropped without any explanation while others left for other university studies in Beira and Chimoio. By the end of the year we had a total a total of 13 students still attending classes. We are happy to announce that we opened with 12 from the previous year. One of those who dropped studies last year came back and will join his colleagues. Lucas and his wife have come back to continue with their studies after dropping out because of having been deployed in a distant work place. Lucas was recently moved to a school nearby. He is a primary school teacher. We praise our Lord for this development.
3.0 Holiday Preaching
There was preaching done by our students in Chimoio, Messika, Manica and Machipanda during the December holidays. In Chimoio, our students visited and preached at different congregations that included 7Th Abril congregation which is one of the oldest congregations in Chimoio.
The other congregation that has sent their report to the school is Chipuwe congregation which is also an extension work from 7th Abril. In Manica one of our student did door to door teaching and the results were awesome. As we speak, there is a new congregation in Manica. It started with seven baptisms on the 18th of January. The work was done by our student, with the help of the school, who is entering into his second year. He shall continue nursing this work as part of his Personal Evangelism II work until next year in September when it shall be decided whether he will proceed with it or hand it to the Church in Vumba Manica.
4.0 The New Students
As part of the influence from our students, in the month of December we received new applications from Chimoio and Messika. We did invite seven of those who applied and five turned up. We are excited to let you know that all the five have successfully done their interviews that included the written one. They have since joined the rest of the students in their studies. They shall be doing the courses that others are doing and will have to complete the other courses done last year by their colleagues.
The following are the students we have interviewed and successfully completed the interview process: Abdul Estavao Andre, Augusto Carvalho Frederico, Paiva Antonio Imola, Flavio Januario Guenova and Jocobe Domingos Zandamela. They are all from Chimoio. More interesting is the fact that one of these students is actually working with a new congregation in Chimoio under the oversight of brother Rupiah who is the preacher at the 7th Abril congregation.
5.0 A New Tutor
We are excited to report to you that we now have a new tutor. His name is Bothwell Gutu. He is a trained preacher from MSOP. He also holds a teaching Diploma and is a qualified sign language teacher. Bothwell is married to Tatenda Muchemwa. The two have been based in Harare where Tatenda has been working as a shef at the Jameson Hotel and Bothwell was working with Almond Africa, a company that does waste management. Bothwell will also be assisting us with our projects.
6.0 The Lunch Meals
We have since been looking for funding to address the issue of a lunch meal on Saturday. Most of our students are low income earners and most of the time cannot afford this meal on the study day. To maximize concentration on the part of the students we have always advocated for a lunch meal. We will be very grateful to partner with different congregations or arms of the church towards this. This will go a long way to improve our output. To those that may want to attend to other concerns we have may come on board and we discuss on the other needs we have.
7.0 The Current Stock of Freelance Birds
In the month of September 2025 we managed to hatch fifty three chicks of the Black Astrolop birds with our incubator donated by the Pact missionaries. We still have these birds on our facility and are looking forward to see them dropping eggs around the month of March 2026. This bird has a reputation of being resilient and drops more eggs in a year than many species. The school looks forward to hatch more chicks from this parent stock for sale.
8.0 Attachment Programme for our Students
In our second years, we will be having the course Personal Evangelism II. The course will be taught and graded by Owen Ruraca. Several of our students who have successfully completed Personal Evangelism I course and other courses in the first year will be attached to different congregations to work with these under the supervision and tutorship of Owen Ruraca. To date we have a congregation established in Manica by one of our students who will also work with this same congregation until next year in September. We also have another congregation that was resuscitated by your school last year in Machipanda. We look forward to put at least one of our students to work with that congregation as well. There are plans to establish another congregation in the Militao area in Messika. This place is a bit distant from the current congregation in Messika.
9.0 College Registration Complete
We started the process of registration in September 2025. We acquired several documents that we have been asked to include in our file. All of these documents we acquired from different authorities were acquired on fees. The weakness has been in the lack of standard as to the charges on these. However, we are so grateful that so much was done though the process had lately become so unpredictable due to weird systems in governance in this country. In early December 2025 we had to go to the Government offices in Manica to check on the progress of our file. Surprisingly, the documents were missing and could not be traced. We had to re-do the file to submit it. As we write this report the process has been completed. The Ministry of Education personnel came on our campus and assessed several things on our facilities including our paperwork such as attendance registers, the length of each course and the length of the curriculum and others. We are grateful for some funds we have received from Donnie, the Bear Valley Bible Institute family and Doctor Campion Mugweni who is our patron. He occasionally came in to assist us with funding. These have assisted us a great deal. Yet, a working fund will go a long way to cushion such needs as these. The next process which we are yet to be advised on the dates is the convergence of different departments to officially announce our registration on our campus.
Conclusion
We are excited to announce the beginning of our second year in existence with a high note. We have twelve of our students coming back to resume with their studies. Most of our students participated in preaching and other church related activities during the December holidays. To date we have a congregation that has been established through the effort of our students. Five new students have been admitted into our student body. One of our staff has been called to some other duties and will be replaced by Bothwell Gutu. Our students who have successfully completed their courses from last year will be attached to different congregations. This shall be part of their Personal Evangelism II course. We still have our parent stock of the Black Astrolop birds on the campus and looking forward to them starting to drop eggs in the month of March. Our joy has been multiplied by the college registration which has just been completed. We praise God for this giant step in our existence. The process had so many surprises on its path.