Church plants in Malawi

Bear Valley Bible Institute – Ekwendeni (Malawi)

July 2019 Report

Introduction

Time flies so quickly! We are just one month after the middle of the year! The questions are; what have we done so far? Are we doing what we planned to achieve this year? Well, in this report we will just quickly give an update of what we have done. We have done a lot in teaching, evangelism and looking into the future of the school. We have had visiting teachers who came to teach the students and some just came to encourage us. In February we had Brothers Donnie Estep and Jim Kerns, in March we had Brother Navie Theu and in June we had Brother Richard Rogers and his wife Carol. Just in two weeks ago we had Brother Matthew Muchingami the Director of the Bear Valley School in Zimbabwe and also we were visited by Chad and his wife Rena. Chad visited lot of places, but he thought it good to come and say hello to the students and the teachers, this has been a year of visitors – what a blessing!

Teaching

We are almost about to finish our curriculum and looking forward to the graduation in September. The time table has really been followed perfectly. The coming in of the visiting teachers has helped us move very quickly. We are thankful to all the brothers who came to help us teach.

Congregations established

Since February this year, we have been involved in establishing three congregations. One of our students, Brother Chisamba Tembo organised the two campaigns during the holiday time and end up establishing 2 churches namely; Kalema and chiporwa all in Ntchisi District. This is very encouraging to us as teachers and to those who support this work when we see the fruits of our goal in training faithful preachers – 2 Timothy 2:2! The time the students were on their holiday, the teachers and one former student organised a preaching campaign in the western side of Mpherembe and establish Emandhloveni church. We hope it will be a very fruitful year both in class and in the field. The total number of souls baptized in these three congregations started since February, 2019 is 61 and in addition to these baptisms, 21 more souls restored!

Campaigns

We are having two more campaigns before the student’s graduation in September. The major challenge we are facing so far is transport to take us to where we want to preach. This time we are thankful that the Lord has provided us with funds to hire the vehicle to take us where we are going this month end the Lord willing. 

We always appreciate Bear Valley International for the support. Your prayers and kindness mean a lot to us. We always pray that God continues blessing your families. Think Souls!

Yours fellow servants in the Lord,

Ephron and Clergynton

Student Evangelism in Togo

June 2019 report:

May the peace and grace of the Lord be with each of us. Thank you, Lord, for your great blessings especially as a new congregation is established in the region of Bassar thanks to the evangelists of Kpalime.

BVBI-Kpalime:

Every Wednesday evening two students either APEWOKE Kokou and SABOUTEY Koffi go to Avetonou to study and invite people to church on Sundays, or SEGLA Joli and TOSSOU FOFO go by motorcycle to AGOU-ADZA where they study with the population to establish a new congregation because it is a large village located on the road to Lomé. Sometimes to allow a large number of people to participate in the study, a motorcycle takes 3 to 4 people.

Some students see their evangelistic work and their zeal to convert denominations; we have hope for a better future. Among the 14 students, 7 lead the assemblies on Sundays, and the rest help the evangelists on the churches.

Agriculture and livestock:

The students started their first experience on the agriculture project and visited the pigs. They have taken to sowing soybeans, and in the coming days, they will receive instructions in each area.

Saturday's classes:

Currently, as you see in the photos, we can already count on the students in Kpalime and Lomé as a hope for the next class of the Bear Valley Institute. So next year when we will have two more classes in different parts of Togo, then each city or village will have a candidate trained to work as an evangelist at home.

Evangelization:

Togo for Christ is our slogan every Friday as we set off for the village where we go to preach the gospel. Every student knows that the work to save souls is in the power to preach (evangelize) the gospel to lost souls. For it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. We also need, once or twice a year when students travel for three days of evangelization, to set up or grow an assembly.   This would give them experience for ministry.

May the peace and grace of our Jesus Christ fill all his blessings for the support you bring to the Institute.

Thanks

Your brother

NYEMANTA Essotena

Improvements made in Takoradi

OPERATING REPORT FOR JUNE 2019

Dear Brethren,

We thank God for another successful month of operation and I am glad to present to you our operating report for the month of June, 2019.

CLASSROOM WORK

Again, we thank God for successful month of teaching and learning. Students for both the regular and part-time were regular and present in class activities which helped enhance our classroom work.

EVANGELISM / BAPTISMS

We are currently in the rainy season and as such not much evangelism work took place. However, bits of efforts by instructors, students and some past students resulted in the baptism of five (5) souls. These, in addition to the 10 from last month.

SCHOOL COMPUTERS

We are grateful to inform you that we were able to buy five (5) computers for the students to use in their computer class. Ten (10) were needed, and we are happy to get some of them to manage with the eleven students.

REPAIRS / MAINTENANCE

Occasional strong winds accompanying the rains ripped some sheets off the roof of our building and also caused damage to the school’s television set and other electrical connections. This also caused some black-out for some days to the school. A new generator was purchased to enable us have lights until we were re-connected. (We are yet to obtain a new TV set for the students). Termites have also eaten up a door flame and trap door whose repair, maintenance and cleaning raised our expenditure.

We still need to undertake some repairs and maintenance work to the classroom block. We have desired an estimate so we could know how to resolve them as well.

Thank you and may God bless us all.

Joshua Aidoo.

24 baptisms in Mbanga

I greet you all in Jesus name. We praise the almighty God for giving us another opportunity like such. Our God is good and is blessing the church richly. Most of our youth have gone out for holidays and some might further their studies in other places.

We therefore thank the almighty God for giving us that spirit to transform minds. Just as our theme for 2019 goes," My Year of Uncommon Transformation." Subsequently, the church in Mbanga and my home have been common ground for transformation. This is a blessing from God.

Special greetings from the staff of the Bear Valley Bible Institute Cameroon -Mbanga, with a smile on our faces, and from the students who all returned from their first campaign safe and sound. The students of our institution had left for a two weeks mission work to various congregations across the country. We are blessed this time in our campus to have about 15 students in our campus which is a very large number and helpful for evangelism and missions. 

15 students left for mission work to 11 different assemblies across our country. One person went up to the north due to a call by a dying congregation that needed some serious work. It was done perfectly with the help of two of our graduates already in the field. The great God keeps on blessing His work In French Cameroon. The first mission work and campaign were successful as we can get feedback and reports from the local assemblies.

God blessed our first mission work with 24 baptisms, 17 restorations, and one restored congregation in the northern part of Cameroon which gave a total of 44 souls all together. Hundreds of others were opportune to listen to the word of God by way of the students. Some will surely be baptized later after follow-up by the local preacher. Hundreds of tracks were distributed along-side the work. May God continue to bless this batch of students and may they continue to be dedicated to the work.

Also, we are pleased to inform you that all the students came back to the campus and have started classes successfully. May the good Lord lead them through this quarter also in Jesus name. We are pleased to tell you that everybody is okay for now after some series of sicknesses took most of the students unaware. They have gone to the hospital and are taking their treatment. Just one or two persons have some severe problems of health and will have to go to a specialist.

 Upcoming events:

 We are planning to carry out massive evangelism in a new site called Ayos in the central region. We shall be going out for another evangelism in Susa next week. In August we shall be attending the youth retreat with some students.

Calvary greetings from my wife sister Mary who is pressing hard to see that the work in the Bear Valley school keeps on growing.

Ititi Benedict

The students are back in northern Ghana

JUNE REPORT

We are very grateful to God for the absolute protection, peace, joy and grace bestowed on us through His son, we pray that many who have not had the opportunity to benefit from this scheme come to the knowledge of God’ s manifold wisdom through the Church. In that we remained committed to appreciate you for the might work you are doing in Ghana and West Africa as a whole. We also congratulate you for your consistency in making sure that the operational demand of Bear Valley Bible Institute in Tamale is always met.

STUDENTS ARE BACK TO SCHOOL.

As reported last month, students have come back to school to continue their academic work. Thirteen of the fourteen students have reported leaving one who promised to come next week, due to family clashes he could not report on the reopening day. We shall continue to pray for those who also made decision and are not able to come this term.

LECTURESHIP

The classes are ongoing successfully, Christian evidence is in progress with Brother Adjei Mensah Daniel and next course will be The New Testament Church 1{one true Church}, Brother Acquah Beenyi Kojo will teach in that class. There is a campaign planned this term as the students and staff will be going to Upper East for campaign. We are hoping to see the successful end of the term with full of activities.

ADMINISTRATIVE WORK

We are working closely towards the impending programs being hosted in the school. They are Sunday school workshop, seminar for preachers and graduation. Letters have been sent to various churches in the three Northern Regions and positive responses are received. We have also been able to work out  the graduating students transcripts to enable the Bear Valley award the students who have successfully completed the courses of Bear Valley curriculum and worthy of Diploma certificate. Coordinator Kojo Beenyi as usual visited the school to teach and also ensure that things are in order regarding impending programs.

Brother Caleb a visiting America young man worshiped with us for about two months and had gone back to America. We attended his get together party with my family and it was a nice party time, many regards to him.

Please continue to pray with us. May the peace and joy of God rest upon you all now and forever Amen! 

Special seminar in Zambia

June 2019

REPORT

Warm greetings to you all brothers and sisters! We always give honor and glory to God who gives us the rare opportunity of working in His Vine Yard. We also thank Him for this privilege of sharing what is happening here at BVBI-Zambia.

The institute had a joyful month and the 4th quarter came to a close with students having a short course on “Leadership” that was taught by Brother Kennedy Mukuka. This course started on 24th June 2019 and ended on 28th June 2019. A week prior to their short course they had final examinations in their normal courses. Besides our busy schedule in class we always finds time to do practical in Evangelism and this intake has also proved that they do love to preach as we went on weekends at Roan township here in Luanshya. This was a good preparation to our major gospel meeting of June.

Our Copper Belt Province gospel campaign in Ndola of all the Churches of Christ for this year was a success, the meeting became one of the school’s highlights of their activities. This meeting stated on 27th June 2019 and ended on 1st July, 2019. We had a good participation of our students in all the activities. Brother Cephas Mwamba was one of the main speakers during meeting. The theme of the meeting was “Christian Living in the 21st Century”. He did a tremendous job and encouraged many to run away from sin. Brother Fred Kanangu coordinated with leadership to make sure that a four (4) days meeting was a success. There were also other lessons that were taught by other Brothers from the copper belt and beyond.

And at the end of the Gospel meeting the following statistics were recorded: 445 were in attendance, 19 baptisms and 167 restorations. We had a number of good confessions during this time as people were restored and we give God the glory for this!

It was a very sweet surprise to see Brother Keith Kasarjian visit us on 21st June, 2019. In spite of his short visit we were very happy and blessed that he came our way. Indeed he really made our day!!

At the time of writing this report, our students are engaged in a workshop with Brother John Dube from Zimbabwe. As our next report will show.

Our hearts are truly grateful to Bear Valley Bible Institute International and to Woodland Oaks Church of Christ for the financial support and all the encouragement in this good work. We will continue likewise to pray that God will bless the works that you all are involved in as well.

In His Service,

Cephas and Fred

Good news in Cameroon

Hello people of the Most-High God,

We bring you warm greetings from the church in Mbanga, from the school of preaching, and from my family as well. It is a pleasure to relate and to communicate to you all about the work in French Cameroon.  Our country has still been in serious tension with the crisis in the English-speaking part and also in the northern part where Boko Haram is also terrorizing the people in that locality. We urge you people to keep our nation in your prayers.

Time waits for nobody. This has been a common saying in Cameroon. We are advancing with the training of preachers and before it is time, we shall be having another set of preachers in the field. What a glorious moment in life it is to do the work of an evangelist.

We had our first short course with the third batch of students and our first students’ wife’s class that lasted for one week. “It was awesome to have this,” the sisters testified after I taught them the course on “General Bible Knowledge” while analyzing one book after the other. At the end, many were able to site the 66 books of the bible and could also give out the names of the apostles of Jesus Christ along with many other things. At the same time, the men were taking the short course, “Discipleship,” taught by evangelist Beasem Julien. It all went well as the brethren gained more knowledge in the Bible before going out for field work.

Mission work and campaign.

Immediately after the short course, the students embarked on a very critical mission, that of preaching the gospel and winning souls. Some were so excited to go out and become fishers of men while a few others were still in traumas they began to imagine how they would be going out for the ever first time. The command was given and the teaching that no one puts his hand on the plow and looks behind. Go and preach the gospel and the Lord shall be with you till the end of the age.

The field is vast as demand for students was really high. We sent our 15 students to 10 congregations around French Cameroon. We are still waiting for their return. We pray, “may the Lord be with you all till you return to the campus.”

Brother David Ballard, on his part, was doing personal evangelism both in people’s homes and at the church campus. It was another fruitful time as God added 4 souls with in this period of 2 days of evangelism and all are doing great in the Lord. Some others were distributing some food items to the patients, kids waiting with their parents, and sick one. It was all another sweet moment of fellowship. The water in the campus was able to satisfy and quench the taste of all those who were present. Brother Ballard also handed over a Bible to a new convert.

Our next quarter shall begin on the first of July 2019. We pray for the safe return of the students. Some have traveled as far as to the north of Cameroon.

May our Savior, Jesus Christ continue to be with us.

 From the slave in the Mbanga assembly and the school of preaching in Mbanga,

Ititi Benedict

A new group of incoming students in India

Dear Brethren in Christ,  

I bring greetings from Visakha Valley Bible College. By the grace of God we are doing well.  We thank you so much for your prayers and timely encouragements for successfully training the men to become effective evangelists in fertile lands of India.  Certainly it is a blessing to train up evangelists for His cause. With the rapid changing over in our society both culturally and materially people are becoming more materialistic. Even the generation following will not get a good knowledge on God and Its creation unless this generation is being taught about the Truth. We are very thankful to God for blessing us with this great opportunity to light up several souls with the word of God, it is being possible only through sending of well equipped men of God.

Summer effect:

This summer had been the worst of all;  recently monsoon season has begun, not quite rains but a shower here and there, however weather continues to be very very humid. Visakhapatnam has experienced worst ever record breaking temperature this year. Since it is an industrial area weather is usually pretty warm, in summers it add up to terrible degree. Looks like global warming is true….want to visit  Vice President Algore to appreciate his argument about global warming years ago.

New Bore Well:

While this has been the case we are struggling with,  We had some worst time of the year since the end of April at our school, that is lack of water. Of course We were able to buy drinking water, due to downfall of the ground water level in our water well, it was needed to dig a new bore well at the  same place where we have dogged the well before. It has severed for several years, from last few year water has become scarce almost to the point its dried out, see the pictures 3,4. With the help of the brethren from Lake Houston we are able to  dug a new well. We are thankful the process went well and good ground water was found, it took 4 days to get the installation of submersible pump and also new motor. It is definitely the providence of God that we had those funds to meet our desperate need. We praise God for His mercy.

New Academic Year:

Our new academic year has begun, we have 10 students enrolled for the batch of 2019-21; more to join with this group in a week or two. We are going to have our faculty meeting on the 8th Monday to discuss several things about upcoming academic year. The first two pictures show the newly enrolled students filling the application form and taking the Entrance exam.

The newly enrolled students, would  usually filled up the application form and will take an entrance exam. This entrance exam will help the faculty members to understand the standard of the student.  This batch students have helped so much while the new bore well being dug. We are excited to see these young men becoming part of our Visakha Valley family. Hoping that they would continue their enthusiasm in learning the word of God to become effective evangelists of Christ.

Kindly pray for this new academic year, may God bless us with some more good students who would love to be trained and learned. Brother Jerry Bates will be visiting with us in the middle September to teach a short course. Always love to have Bates, looking forward for their visit. We always welcome any new visiting faculty that would be interested to teach a short course or two.

Gratitude:  

We are always grateful to God for His mercy and providence. We do appreciate our loving brethren at Lake Houston Church of Christ and Strickland Church of Christ. Thankful to God for brethren at Strickland who are overseeing the Preaching School, we work as diligently as possible to keep up the trust and confidence.

Kindly continue your prayers as we also pray for you daily. Give our greetings to the Church you worship with and also to your families. May God bless you all.  We with best salutations from all of us at Visakh.

In Christ,

Samuel Raju Muppidi

John Dean M

Vocational training in Nigeria

Dear fellow soldiers of Christ,

Greetings in the wonderful name of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ from your fellow servants of God in BVBIN & SWSE, Ibadan.

Below are report of some of our activities in the Lord for this month of June 2019.

OVERVIEW:

REPORT OF A MONTH STUDENTS’ VOCATIONAL STUDIES & BREAK : All our students are now back from a month Vocational Studies & Break which ended on June 2, 2019. The students during the one month vocational training participates in different trade such as Electrification, Fashion Designing, Barbering, Agriculture, Motor Mechanic, Block & Concrete, NAPPMED and Computer. They also involved in daily morning and evening prayers, weekend evangelism, gospel campaign and some of them that are already a congregational preacher taught the mid-weeks Bible classes and Sunday morning Bible classes throughout the one month .

Nineteen souls were added to the body of Christ as the result of their activities and six erring brethren restored and three congregations planted in Uli,Egbomma and Oguta of Imo State and Aroro village / Salako ,Igbo-Oloyin Road, Ibadan. To God Be The Glory & Honour.

FOURTH SEMESTER CLASSES BEGINS ON JUNE 3:

Our last semester for this session begins Lord’s willing on June 3 and will be concluded on July 26 follow by a month student teaching practice between July 27 through August 25, 2019. We are planning to send the 35 students to four out of the six geographical zones in Nigeria. This will cost us between $600 to $700 for transportation and reprinting of tracts for this one-month spiritual exercise.

SPECIAL ACCOMPLISHMENT:

We appreciates Bro. Keith Kasarjian and the BVBID for assisting us to upgrade our electricity gadget from 2.9 KVA to 8.8 KVA generator plant that supplies electricity to our school community

CONCLUSION : We thank you for your moral and financial supports toward the growth of the Lord’s church in Africa most especially in Nigeria. May the Lord of blessing continue to bless all our work together in Jesus Christ Name, amen.

I remain yours in His grace as a servant,

Makinde Ebenezer Olufemi

BVBIN&SWSE, Ibadan

Making a difference in Fiji and beyond

Bula vinaka from the Fiji Islands

We are coming to the close of our second term of 2019 with only two weeks to go. It has been a great term and the students continue to rise to the challenge of keeping up with their assignments and studying for their exams. We have a really good group of students who are engaged and enthusiastic about the classes that are being taught.

We have a couple of things coming up in the near future. Josh Pierce (my 2nd son) and Paul Merideth will be teaching our short courses this term. Josh has over 20 years experience as a youth minister and he will be talking about how to start a youth program in the local church. Paul, who has PhD in Theology, will be teaching our course on church history. This is Paul's second year to teach in the program here. He did an excellent job last year and was well received by our students. The short courses this term will strike a balance between the academic and the practical.

Lord willing, Emosi and I will be taking a trip to the "far North" to the Labasa Church of Christ. Brother Atu Tawake is working with the congregation there. In addition to preaching, Bro. Atu is a gifted song leader who holds singing practice on Saturdays. He has asked us to record their singing on DVD to be distributed to the other congregations to help improve the singing and to teach the other congregations some new songs. This will be the second recording that they have produced. The first one was very well received and there is a demand for another.

When we started the school here in Fiji, this was one of the the goals that I had set for the program. We wanted not only train preachers and church leaders, but help to provide resources for the local congregations. This DVD will be made available to the local churches free of charge as a resource for them
We also have a resource archive in our library where Sunday school teachers can find coloring pages and activity sheets to supplement their lessons. We have had teachers from several congregations to take advantage of this resource.

Thank you for all that you do to make this work possible. May God bless you with fruits of our labor together!
Your servant in Christ,
Rocco Pierce

Continued progress in Liberia

Greetings Brethren,

We bring you greetings from the students and staffs in Liberia- Bear Valley Bible Institute, hoping all is well with you and your families in the Lord's name. We truly appreciate God for your partnership with us in this great work we have to do here in Liberia, West Africa. Below are the happenings for the months of April and May 2019.

VISIT TO SIERRA LEONE

In the month of April, I was privilege to attend the graduation ceremony for the school in Sierra Leone where 16 students graduated and was awarded a Diploma in Biblical Studies. I was so happy to have been part of the graduation and to see zealous men I was involved in teaching finally going out to do the work of an Evangelist.

I also had the privileged to teach the new batch of students for a week in Personal Evangelism, which gave me the opportunity to get to know them and their ability to take the Bear Valley lessons. I am happy for the experience.

GOOD NEWS FROM OUR PAST STUDENTS

It feels so very good to hear back from men you were involved in training from where they are currently working. There are lots of good news coming back to the school from some of our passed (graduates) students where they are working, especially from Brother Alex Power, Elijah Quoi and Prince Vonleh. These three brothers planted three new congregations when they went home and since then, there have been good news coming from their end about how well the church is doing and many baptism taking place. One request that is keep coming from them is the need to do more campaign or evangelism work in those town to strengthen the brethren and expose the church with the presence of our campaign team. Please pray for these brethren as they continue the good work in those different locations.

VERY BAD NEWS

The Bear Valley Bible Institute Institute Liberia regret  to inform you about the death of student Terry Z. Wounuah who died who  on the 16 of May 2019 at his home town. At the beginning of the second quarter, Student Terry Z. Wounuah, felt critically sick on campus and was forced to go home for treatment. He was diagnosed to have Hapititis B. His illness got very serious by the day and finally, he died on the above date mentioned. He was married with three children. That is, our brother left his wife and three children with nothing or no help to cater for them. The youngest is 5 months old and his eldest son is 6 years old. If anyone with a loving heart will want to help his wife start a little business that will help she and her children, please do. She and the children will appreciate it so much.

EVANGELISM

I am always happy to announce the wonderful work that is being done by the students when it comes to evangelism. Their zeal for evangelism continued to sent out the good news and make the Lord's church known in the community and beyond. In the months of April and May, they had the total of seventeen (17) baptism in Ganta especially around the campus congregation. There had also been increase in membership in the worship.

MASTER PROGRAM

As part of my dream to see the Bear Valley Bible Institute grow in Liberia to offer a Bachalor Degree (BA) and more in Biblical Studies, which will be a way of helping minister to rightfully divide the word of truth, I have chosen to undertake the master degree program offer in Ghana by the Bear Valley Bible Institute to prepare myself for the task ahead. Meanwhile, by the help of brother Steven Ashcraft, the west Africa coordinator for Bear Valley Bible Institute and my family , I have been able to go to Ghana for my classes and back home three different time and by God's grace, I have completed six ( 6) of the twelve (12 ) to be awarded a Masters Degree by Bear Valley. Many thanks to brother Steven and my wife for their encouragements.

APPRECIATION

Many thanks and appreciation to you for all your sacrifices that are making it possible for the Lord's work in this part of the world to go on. May God richly bless you. Please continue to pray for us our country is going through a very serious economy situation right now.

In Him,

Robert P. Dahn, Jr.

Director- BVBI-Liberia

Future preachers camp in Guatemala

To see the latest news from Guatemala, click this LINK.

Student practicals in Zimbabwe

JUNE 2019 REPORT

INTRODUCTION

BVBIZ  make a positive impact in the world by preaching and teaching the unadulterated Word of God both to the lost and the saved. This is achieved at various stages of training. In June, BVBIZ went to another level in the advancement of the Gospel and training of workers for the Lord. A glimpse of this and more are highlighted below.

1.0 BACK TO ANOTHER SESSION

Students had a break from classes on the 26th of May to the 18th of June. Because of this there was no much activity on campus. Two students, Grey Ndoro and Batsirai Tengulachepa who opted to go and work with the congregation at Julena were very fruitful on developing the congregation. Two souls were baptized eventually. For other students also opted to do their part in developing the school’s site by preparing holes for planting fruit trees and planting over 60 of these. All students came back on the 18th to prepare for their field program. The following picture shows one baptism that took place at Julena.

2.0 KEITH KASARJIAN’S VISIT

Keith Kasarjian, Bear Valley Bible Institute International schools Director,  visited BVBIZ on the 18th and left on 20th of June. Keith had time to interact with both students and staff. He visited the school’s permanent site and had an appreciatiation of the developments so far and where BVBIZ wants to go. He also joined the school in her ongoing planting of fruit trees.

3.0 PLANTING OF TREES

In the month of June, about 60 fruit trees were planted at our permanent site. This is an orchard in the making. More are yet to be planted. Our appreciation goes to students who decided to forego their break and dig holes and then plant the trees. Trees planted so far include mangoes, avocadoes, paw paws and oranges. Besides providing food to students, some of these may provide some income for the school later in the future. In the picture below, students do the planting.

CONCLUSION

Finally we would like to thank you all for your moral, spiritual and financial support. Our request this month is that you keep remembering the students who are in the field. This is a new experience for them. Our desire is that the world be won for Christ. To God be the glory!

Local initiatives in Arusha

Grace and Peace to you friends.

We hope that you had a wonderful holiday weekend! The intensity of campaign season is winding down, and some of the team will get a well deserved chance to catch their breath a little. To read a good review of some of the campaign efforts, make sure to check out the Duncan family's recent blogpost: https://havegodwillgo.com/2019/06/30/summer-campaigns-in-the-winter/ Also, be sure to pray for them as they go on furlough.

In addition to the campaigns, I'm very proud of the effort and initiative that the local churches in the Ushirombo area gave to conducting their own area-wide seminar. Yusuph, the local evangelist, described it this way:

"In these seminar four souls has been added into the Church at Ushirombo. The number of attendees was 166 christians. Many thanks to the women who cooked the food for five days. Also there was huge group of children the number was 58 and they had their studies. Some congregations contributed food rice and beans.”

Let's continue to pray for these brethren and their efforts.

Till all have heard,

Daniel Gaines
Director
Tanzania Missions

A great start for the new school in Lesotho

MAY-JUNE REPORT

Church of Christ in Lesotho has made great strides in partnership with Bear Valley Bible Institute. Two courses have so far been taught; students are excelling in their class work. One soul put on Christ through personal evangelism by our students.

The church of Christ in Lesotho with the help of Bear Valley Bible Institute has established a Bible school which commenced on the 4th of May 2019. The school started with 17 students in the first course, How We Got The Bible and 20 students in Old Testament 1. Tawanda Mwadiya taught the first course, and the second one was instructed by Vincent Shata.

The school is only two months old but the impact that it has shown seems like it has been existing for more than a year. The students have started to put what they are learning into practice, the school has encouraged every student to find at least a person to study the Bible with, therefore, our students are involved in personal work. There are more than 45 prospects who are having Bible studies with Bear Valley Bible Institute Lesotho students.

The congregations around Maseru have started appreciating the great impact our students are bearing in their communities. Moshe Tsoene and Likhama Leuta are having Bible studies with 14 men and women who belongs a certain denomination called Sekamaneng Apostolic church in Zion. Their topic is ‘The true church found in the Bible’, Moshe Tsoene has been given chances to teach them during their Sunday worship. There is a great potential that souls are going to be won from this denomination.

Motlatsi Ramphielo, Tankiso Rahlao and Moliko Moliko have managed to get a slot on the radio every Sunday at 2100-2200 hours, their topic is ‘Why we are the church of Christ’. This radio programme has a lot of listeners and is engaging many people hence, 5 people have requested for Bible study.

Senate Mosisili and Sibongile Nyamatana have been instrumental in organizing Bible studies. The group that they have managed to organize for Bible studies has now more than 10 young men and young ladies attending. As result of this initiative, a soul has been saved.

Finally, BVBIL would like to thank God and everyone who is behind the establishment of the school. God is at work in Lesotho and we are just participating in what He is already doing. Our students have started to be evangelistic and they are also deeply involved in different ministries in their respective congregations.

In His arms,

Tawanda Mwadiya

An incredibly productive "break" in Kenya

This is to let brethren know what the Bible students at the Kenya school of preaching had done during the three weeks June holiday and what takes place now at the institution. The number of students is 20 (twenty) and during the holiday, they served twenty eight (28) local congregations. They as well made forty seven (47) evangelistic trips and attended five (5) gospel meetings. They conducted eighty seven (87) Bible studies and preached forty sermons (40). All these they did within a period of three weeks and as a result, twenty one baptisms have been conducted, eighteen individuals (18) restored back to local church services and three (3) local congregations restored back to sound doctrine.

The classes began officially on 1st of July 2019 and these are the teachers and courses they teach;

Regular classes; Charles Ogutu teaches 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles. He also teaches the Gospel of Luke. Ochola Joseph teaches the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. Timothy Winks teaches 1 Peter & 2 Peter and Jude. Elias Omollo teaches Personal Evangelism II (church planting).

Short course teachers are Peter Ray Cole and Mike Reese. Peter Ray teaches Marriage and family life while Mike Reese teaches the Gospel of John.

Other good things that take place at the preaching school include;

Local congregations still taking Mission Printing materials (tracts and booklets) for their evangelism and edification. Preachers' boxes are now over. Nixon Ochieng also enrolls students in World Bible School Correspondence courses.

Thanks for those who have been supporting the school in one way or another. May the Lord bless you abundantly and may He remember your efforts toward his name. Thanks again for your continued prayers for the work here. We also pray for you. Be blessed.

In His service,

Elias

Summer camp in Ukraine

Dear brothers and sisters,

Last month and in the beginning of this month we had a lot of important events. Some of them are especially priceless for me and my family. So, I'll start with the most important ones. In the beginning of July we attended a wonderful summer camp "Americraine" not far from the city of Dnipro. It's an annual event, and many Christians in Ukraine are looking forward to it every summer. It's hosted by our American brethren. The team engages quite a few Ukrainians as well (most of them are Bear Valley graduates) and some local congregations. This year attendance was 350 representatives from different parts of Ukraine. 8 people were baptized during the camp activities. And the most special ones were the baptism of my mother Valentina as well as my wife's sister Natasha. During the last 18 years I have been planting the Seed in my family circle. We talked a lot about the salvation of souls. A few attempts were made to set up a date for baptism but at the very last moments something would go wrong. But the Christian camp atmosphere as well as the wonderful lessons and God's presence made it all work out for the best. Praise the Lord for His church and the diligence of our American brethren in hosting the camp! And special thanks to Jeff Abrams and his team who comes and encourages Ukrainian Christians every year.

During the month of June, we kept looking for potential students. And currently we found 5 who want to join the program. Most of the interested people are young ones. There is also a married couple. It's a huge blessing for us to have an opportunity to influence young people willing to serve in the Lord's church.

In the middle of the last month we had a team of Christians from Southeast Church of Christ, Aurora, CO. They are my old friends and for many years support my ministry in Ukraine. We are very grateful for their children ministry. They stayed in our city only for a few days. They taught the children's class, evening class in the church and visited the orphanage for the children whose parents had been deprived their parental rights. Please accept our gratitude for the service, encouragement and support of our family and the church.

The other important news that rejoiced me tremendously is that our graduate Oleg Fofanov finalized all formalities to become a full-time preacher in Konstantinivka. Before that two preachers from the city of Kramatorsk Vladimir Paziy and Vitaly Rodichev would go and preach there by turns. It was not a very good arrangement because they had to occasionally miss the services in their own congregation. Now this will change. Oleg will take over completely. We request your prayers for Oleg and his ministry in Konstantinivka.

In summer time our students are back to their home congregations with the practical assignments. They all sent me the reports for the previous month. Thus, Eljune Aliev is with the church in Kamenskoe and simultaneously helps the church in the village of Plaveschano. They are getting ready for the VBS. Also he was an active participant in the youth camp in the city of Zapporizhe where 10 people were baptized. Masha, Rosa and Lena work with children in their local congregations. Rosa worked with the children in Slovyansk last month, but she didn't leave her regular children's ministry in Skvira. It's a 14 hours trip from Slovyansk to Skvira by train or by bus. Vitaly works with the congregation in Dnipro. He taught some lessons, paid a visit to some disabled Christians. Ruslan is very active in the congregation of Bela Tserkva. He taught a few lessons and part in the street evangelism efforts. These are some news about our students' summer activities. And in my next report I'll write some more about their work.

Thank you all who continue supporting our Institute and the work of the congregations in Ukraine. We appreciate your involvement a lot.

Your brother and co-worker in the Lord's Vineyard,

Dennis Sopelnik

8 baptized in Nepal

Nepal Center for Biblical Study

April – June,  2019

Respected brothers in Christ,

Greetings to you all in the precious name of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. May grace of God, love and peace always be with you.

Vacation camp

We are doing well in the kingdom of God at Kathmandu. We had finished our three weeks of holiday on the month of April. We had time to encourage our graduated students with their home congregations. Total eight new souls were added in the Church. Most of our graduated students are doing their hard work in the vine yard of the Lord. Possibly we will get some new students from their areas for the next class. We did had ladies classes in three different congregations. Rejina, and our current lady students had opportunity to teach other ladies in our vacation camp.

Regular classes

We are doing well in our regular classes at school. We are repeating our Old Testament and New Testament books. Brother Jerry is taking classes in different topics from the Bible.

Graduation

If things are going smoothly, we will do our lectureship and graduation for this group of students in the last week of September month.

Voice of Truth International

We have finished our translation and proof reading of VOTI. We will print out in this month. Another volume will be print on the month of October.

Thank you all of your prayer, support, love and guidance.

Brother in Christ,

Gajendra Deshar

Special guest teacher in Malawi

BEAR VALLEY BIBLE INSTITUTE – EKWENDENI, MALAWI

JUNE REPORT - 2019

Introduction

What a great start of the second semester full of good news from student’s home congregations! We are glad to be back at school for our second semester. We were also blessed to have Brother Richard and Carol his wife. Richard taught our students in the course of “Church history”. Brother Richard and his wife stays in Chimala – Tanzania for the Lord’s sake. As they were in Malawi during this time, not only our students have benefited from them, but also some of Mzuzu congregations did.

Sister Carol had been teaching sisters at Matindibizi in Mpherembe area, Ekwendeni, Katoto and also in Chivunguru Rumphi. On 15th June, there was a seminar at Katoto in Mzuzu and Richard was asked to teach on “reading the word of God” and “The importance of studying God’s words” Nehemiah 8:8. Richard and Carol were also asked to attend worship at Kaviwale church of Christ which he helped establish in 12 years ago. So, on 16th which was Sunday we went to kaviwale where Ephron taught bible class on “How to be a Faithful servant” Ezra 7:10 and Brother Richard preached on “Staying focused life” Hebrews 12:1-3. In all these places the request has been appealing to Richard and Carol to come again!

Good news from the students

We have been waiting for the students to come from their one month holiday, and they reported at school on 2nd June with their faces bright! This was about the good news they brought from their different home congregations. They have been attending seminars, teaching classes, and much more preaching door to door which fulfil the command of great commission by our Lord Jesus Christ – Matthews 28:19-20. From the 14 congregations these student are coming from, many souls have been encouraged by their preaching, teaching and many other duties they helped in while they were on the holiday. The out-come of their holiday has been that 7 souls had been added to the Lord’s church and more than 7 restored.

Short-course teacher

We received Brother Richard on 8th June who started teaching on the 10th of June to the 14th of June. We are always thankful for the visiting teachers. It’s not easy to leave your home on your own expenses to come and help us teach. Therefore, extend our gratitude to Brother Richard for his coming to teach at our school. It was a good class on “church history” as many students confessed that this was their first time to learn how the “Departure from faith started” they admitted to have learnt a lot. After he finished the class on Friday the 14th of June, Bear Valley Bible Institute – Ekwendeni was happy to take Brother Richard and Carol for a meal in Mzuzu where we joined them celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary! It was great joy as we even were accompanied by Brother Moster the evangelist at Katoto Church of Christ, and his wife, along with 3 other families of preachers who works with Moster. It was such a blessing for them to come to Malawi.

Campaigns

We have been invited again to help in establishing two congregations in the area of western Mpherembe. But still our challenge is transport to take our students there. Many people have seen how our school does the door to door work and are calling us to help. We still don’t lose hope, because God wants all people to be saved and will help us with transport. We are ready to share our faith always whether we go near or far!

Graduation

We are also happy to let you know that in September this year, we will have Donnie come and teach the last short-course and have graduation ceremony at the end. This will be our second graduation ceremony in Malawi since the school was established in 2015.

2020/2021 intake

We are planning to have our next interviews in October this year. We have already received 24 application forms from all the regions of Malawi. We are hoping to have more application forms coming. The more applicants, the better the choice! We are looking to have 20 students this time. As we have the opportunity, we need to train many preachers as we can. Opportunity + Ability =Responsibility.

Words of thanks

We are very thankful to Bear Valley International for the support fro this work. The school cannot run without your support. Keep up supporting us in many ways you can as this school still need your involvement. Thanks for your kindness and many prayers! We are also thankful for Brother Richard and Sister Carol for helping Matindibizi congregation where Carol taught the ladies, by giving them a sawing machine and also helping them have an opportunity to buy subsidised Bibles that are found with Ephron. The Bibles are in our local language of Tumbuka. So you have the Bible under two conditions; you either memorize the books of the bible or you buy it at Mk5, 000 to get one, instead of Mk7, 100 at the Malawi Bible Society. Let me also thank Brother Dale my fellow worker in the Lord for helping funding for this subsidised Bible project twice since last year. This is really helping many Christians in rural congregations have a Bible. Eternity Is Forever, Think Souls!

Ephron and Clergynton

Gratitude for BV in New Zealand

We currently have three full-time students, and they are all doing very well. Monique, our youngest student, and her mother came up to me the other day saying, “We are so glad you brought Bear Valley to New Zealand.” Of course, I had to inform them it wasn’t me, and I am also thankful to be a part of the Bear Valley family.

The specific reason on their minds was because some Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on their door the other day. Typically, they would have said, “No thanks.” This time, however, Monique had just come home from class and had the Scriptures on her mind. She was able to engage in very thoughtful conversation with the nice lady at her door. They spent some time reading the Scriptures Monique brought up, and God was glorified. We are all thankful for what God is doing through BVBINZ. And we’re thankful for those who sacrifice for it to be reality.

Lance Mosher, Director