Next week we will be gathering our books, papers, syllabi and bags for the trip to Chimala, Tanzania to begin the last quarter of work at the Chimala Bible Institute. As a Bear Valley Bible Institute coordinator and the director of the school we are excited about the last weeks of study for the year and the upcoming graduation. Two of our teachers are headed next week to the Leadership Conference in Arusha, our sister BVBID school in northern Tanzania. E-Mails and phone calls have been made and preparations are complete for the trip back to Chimala. A lot of travel, meetings and worshiping at various churches to make presentations about the work have been done this summer. Yes, we are on our way to continue training preachers for the spread of the gospel in east Africa.
This week though has given us a further reason to go back to Africa to be involved in this great work. The country just to the north of us is Kenya. Numerous times to complete the flight we have landed in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. As with the rest of the world we have been shocked, angered and, yes, even a little scared because of the cowardly attack of innocent civilians at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi this week. 200 people were injured and 72 people lost their lives because of the group, Somali Islamist terrorist group al Shabab, that is dedicated to force Somalia to a Islamist theocracy. They were the ones who committed this act. Those who died were Kenyans, French, Australians, Netherlanders, Peruvians, Indian Swiss, South Africian, Chinese, New Zealanders and Canadians. They died because the terrorist want to punish, by any means necessary, people and force a false religion. Our state department has notified us that Tanzania is under a travel alert. Yes, it is dangerous there, but as Christians we know there is only one way to combat this evil in the world, i.e. by “preaching the gospel of peace” that Jesus Christ came to provide. This is why we are going and why we MUST continue to train the native Christians to preach the gospel in east Africa.
Garry L. Hill
BVBID Coordinator
Chimala Bible Institute