New Students For Class of 2016
In March, our campaign to recruit new students for the 2016 training year, continued in the background. As at now, we have six interested candidates who are yet to confirm their application by submitting their completed application forms. As formal recruitment letter is now being sent out to the brotherhood, we look forward with great optimism to a good number responding this time. Besides, verbal announcements of new recruitments are being made in some congregations. Interestingly, a couple of devoted young men who are non-members of the church are seriously seeking admission to “study and to train” to become ministers of the gospel of Christ.
A laudable idea which came up this time was that, the school began looking for a parcel of land on which Lord willing, a permanent school building would be built. This means, the school must also necessarily have recognition with the government through official registration. Initiative has been taken, and we are hoping that both the land acquisition and the registration processes find a success.
Variety Instruction Through Short Course
The Short Course period in each quarter is an exceptionally exciting time for our students. Oftentimes, we would have different instructors with a great deal of experience come to teach different courses. Right now, [SIBS] has four other short course instructors, two who have already completed the Bear Valley Masters program, and the other two, still studying for the Masters. Besides, we also have opportunity to host some US instructors from time to time. This is indeed, a great benefit to our students. During this quarter, we were actually grateful to have brother Steven Ashcraft to teach one of the courses. Brother Steven took the students through the course on Bible Geography, which according to them, gave them not only a good insight into the historical background of prominent Bible characters and places, but also adequate information on certain significant reigning periods in Israel’s history. Such historical settings of the Bible made the lessons come more alive to them.
Water supply to the school which hitherto had been a problem hadn’t seen much improvement until this time. However, our fervent hope was that, the situation would see remarkable improvement with the re-digging of the school well and also as we approached the rainy season.
God has been so good to us, and we are exceedingly thankful. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
Seth Osae-Larbi
Southern Institute of Biblical Studies