March 31, 2013
Greetings in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! I hope this newsletter finds you well. It has been a busy month for us here.
The third quarter of the school year ended on March 1, with a final exam in the Advanced Homiletics class. All the students did well on their finals and their overall grades. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed teaching that class and hope to have opportunity to teach it again.
On March 8, Bob Turner, Director of Extensions, and I left for Asunción, Paraguay, arriving Saturday evening, March 9. On Sunday afternoon, after a great worship service with a capacity crowd and a delicious meal together, we got to participate in the exciting inauguration ceremony of the Asunción Bible Academy. There are two sister congregations in Asunción (the only two in the country), and both were represented at the worship and ceremony. Also students and faculty come from both congregations. Bob and I began our journey home on Tuesday, March 12, around midday arriving in Denver Wednesday afternoon, March 13.
On Wednesday, March 20 Bob and I again headed to the airport, this time bound for Guatemala for the graduation of the Beta Class at ITL, as well as, the 4th Annual ITL Lectureship. In addition, ITL celebrated its 5th anniversary. There was a lot of ceremony, good fellowship and outstanding gospel preaching! Approximately 450-500 people came together on Sunday morning for worship. The logistical problems of finding room for so many people were great, but what a great problem to have! Our hats are off to missionaries Hawatthia Jones and Byron Benitez, as well as, the rest of the ITL staff (Aníbal Ramirez and Darvin Alvarez) and the members of the Linda Vista congregation who hosted the event. Bob and I returned home late Monday night, March 25.
April will begin with a rapid pace, as well. Beginning today and through tomorrow morning, the extension staff from all over the world will begin arriving for our annual extension meeting Monday and Tuesday. It will be a good meeting as we make plans to improve our efforts to train preachers all over the world.
Thank you all so much for your interest, participation and support of this work. The following paragraph is a partial repeat from last month.
I want to thank our supporters, first of all, for the ability you give us to do the work we do. Secondly, I want to thank you for making the change to send your support to the school here. When we announced this change, we expected there would be an adjustment period, but most have adjusted just fine. Just by way of reminder, please send your checks to the Institute here at the address listed below and please make your checks out to BVBID, not to me. Thank you!
School Contact Information: My Contact Information:
Bear Valley Bible Institute of Denver
2707 S. Lamar
Denver, CO 80227
(303) 986-5800
(800) 766-4641
Fax: (303) 986-8003
Email: info@bvbid.org
Web: www.WeTrainPreachers.com
Donnie Bates
4801 S. Wadsworth #3-105
Littleton, CO 80123
(303) 718-7040
Email: dbates@bvbid.org
May God bless you richly!
Donnie Bates