Dear Brethren in Christ,
Greetings to you in the precious name of Lord Jesus Christ our savior By the grace of God we are doing fine, hope everything is going good with you all. First of all we thank you very much for your kind prayers, encouragements which is enabling us to train up the effective evangelists in our own community to reach our communities with the Good News.
Future Plans: Currently we have 15 regular students in the undergraduate class, Lord willing in April 2014 we shall start another class with 10 students if our financial situation permits. Right now number of men are requesting for admission in to school, since our school year is 2 years and our budget is set for 15 students we are not able to do so, at the same time we are thinking about restricting 10 students for each year, in this we we shall have 20 regular students in two different classes, where 10 preachers would be graduating every year, this might cost little but not so much to worry about. Kindly pray for this.
Political Crisis: Our State of Andhra pradesh is struggling under political crisis. Over a million government employees called for an indefinite strike, this is against the Central Government's decision to bifurcate our state. This agitation is completely done by all the people in the coastal districts. As s results millions of people are without Pay, Income and work for last 65 days. This agitation has affected the people in so many ways, due to while price hike in vegetables, grocery etc., Transportation system has been badly affected, no private or government buses are available to travel to any place in our region. Recently the electricity department has called for a strike, imagine our lives without power, offices, banks, fuel stations, Railroad system, domestic supply etc., are temporarily closed. Even the Hospitals do not have power supply, due to which thousands of patients are struggling, imagine them who are in Intensive care Units. Our students having hard time to get to school, however we appreciate the students for their commitment to attend school besides all kinds of circumstances. Brother Denton has witnessed some of it while he is here. Kindly pray that this agitation would come to a peaceful ending very soon.
Master Classes: We had an attendance of 10 regular students attended for the two week Master Classes. Brother Denton Landon is the instructor for this time, he taught Epistle to the Hebrews and Advanced Hermeneutics.
We appreciate the Elders at Bear Valley, especially brother Bob Turner and Denny Petrillo for sending some hands on experienced preachers to teach in the extension school. It is really a very wise choice; experienced preachers can do a great job in training the future preachers. This is evident when we see the atmosphere of these classes at Visakha during these two weeks. Brother Denton Landon has done a marvelous job in teaching both of these subjects. Since the students have gone through a Preaching school and currently working as ministers, this has helped everything to go very smoothly and comfortably. Our students have a very good learning attitude, even though they are not eloquent
in English they have tried to ask question in the class and during the break as well,this has helped the students and the instructor stay connected during the class. Students enjoyed the Hermeneutics class so much, one of the reason is brother Denton was very patient, another reason is there is a lot of home work is done which helped the students to understand the lectures more better.
Campaign week: Our new students have been blessed with an opportunity to learn about out-reach ministry. Indeed to fulfil our mission of 'Evangelizing India' millions of souls to be preached about Jesus this is one of the way to accomplish that. At the same time our students get first hand experience to knock the doors and preach the good news of Christ openly without any hesitation or fear. We have a student named 'Viswasi' he works with two congregations in Vijayanagaram District, he wanted us to visit his village to preach the gospel and encourage the local congregation. Our teaching faculty has done an awesome job in teaching about the 'Edification of the Church'. We also visited another village where we had the opportunity to preach about our Savior Jesus Christ. As we reached several young men by distributing gospel tracts, couple of them who had some knowledge about Salvation & Church has come forward to learn
more. We sat for a Bible study, when we explained about God's plan of salvation and answered their questions they expressed their desire to become children of God. So, the local minister baptized them for the remission of sins. We insisted on them to attend our school for two weeks so that it would give them an opportunity to learn more about the Church since one of our faculty is teaching about the New Testament Church.
Library work: We are thankful to God for the brethren who have been thoughtful about the Library at Visakha Valley Bible College. These have been bringing/buy few books each time they come to Visakh, as a result number of books are increasing. This is giving a great opportunity to our students to investigate about certain topic. However, during the master class students having hard time to find books for their classes as well as for accomplishing their task book review &
reading. We also need books for the undergraduates as well, in deed books written in Telugu would be very helpful for these future preachers, these books (commentaries/study books) are now available in the local christian book stores. We request you brethren to kindly think about this need, see what you all can do.
New Batch of Students: We have students from outskirts of the state of Andhra Pradesh, which is the border area of another state Orissa. These students speak two languages (Telugu and traditional Oria), this is a wide open opportunity to reach the un-reached people in the remotest area. In fact these students speak their tribal language too. We are very excited to see the gospel being preached in the ‘uttermost parts of the world’ (Acts 1:8). We had two students in the earlier batch who successfully finished their course of study have encouraged these students to enroll in the school to well equip themselves to preach Jesus Christ to their own communities. These students have done an excellent job in the recent Gospel Campaign. No wonder these will be doing a tremendous job as preachers in their communities after finishing the school.
One to one study: One to one study most of times gives amazing results. Certainly it is a wide open opportunity for a preacher to draw the other person closer to the word of God. In deed a wise explanation and a pleasing approach to their queries would end the study with a productive ending. Certainly this is what happened during one of our study resulting two young men came forward to accept Jesus Christ as their savior and Lord added them to the Church on that day.
Gratitude: We thank the brethren at Lake Huston for sending their financial encouragements, we do thank the Strickland Church of Christ for their commitment to fill-up the space in sending the needed amount of funds to run the school. We appreciate your prayers and thoughts, please continue your encouragements as we continue our efforts of equipping the next generation evangelists. Please convey our greetings and salutations to the brethren worship at your congregation. We do appreciate the brethren they are playing a vital role in running the Preacher Training school all across the world. May our mighty God receive the glory and honor.
Preachers Fellowship: Brother Suresh, Rama Rao who are graduates of our school working in Vizayanagaram
District leading the singing during the Preachers Fellowship meeting conducted by one of our student 'Viswasi'
Preachers: Old students now working as full time ministers honoring the Director of Visakha Valley Bible College, they appreciate him for not only giving them an excellent training to become preachers but also for visiting their villages and encouraging them and their congregations.
Results of our Mission work in last two months:
Number of people obeyed to the Lord - 12
Number of doors knocked: 4,200
Gospel Tracts Distributed: 12,000
Gospel Meetings conducted: 18
New Congregation Established: 1
We thank you very much for the time spared to read this report, kindly continue your prayers for us as we also do for you. God bless America, God bless India and the whole world. We pray that things would turn out good in your country, may our Lord protect you from financial disaster and keep you as a blessing to the nations.
In Christ,
John Dean Muppidi
Visakha Valley Bible College
Church of Christ
Andhra Pradesh, INDIA