Dearest in Christ,
Happy new year, 2025, to you and your entire family. We praise God, from whom all blessings flow, for His great mercy to all us all as He has allowed us to be part of the year 2025 and to continue His work here in this part of the globe.
We do hope you are doing well and the blessings of the new year are very much around you and those within your influence. God is too faithful to fail! We pray and hope for an even better year than 2024 in all aspects of life and ministry.
God has blessed the Bear Valley Bible Institute here in Cameroon to commence with the 8th (Theta) batch of students. They came to Wotutu on the 4th of January 2025 to start their two-year training in Biblical studies. As of now we are moving on with 18 students rather than our normal 20 as some, who after passing the entrance exams and coming to Wotutu to start, were not willing to stay after the first week as they felt different in the program than what they had prepared themselves for mentally. Keep these 18 in your daily prayers as they invest the rest of their lives in the service of God and His church, as preachers of the gospel.
Evangelism is our mission and that is top on our agenda. We engage in hinterland missions to nurture and encourage Christians who have felt as though they have been abandoned. Most congregations in the hinterland are suffering from serious spiritual kwashiorkor (malnutrition) because of the absence of trained preachers there. It is clear that the gospel is needed in villages, as well as in town and cities. It is also clear that there is a dire need to penetrate the hinterland which is very difficult because of bad roads or no roads at all. We must trek many miles inside the virgin forest to meet Christians there.
Our students in the theta batch have started house to house evangelism in the Wotutu community, as they share the gospel in follow up to our early morning radio program, “Back to the Bible.” This early morning program started since June of 2011 and has been going continually until today. Our PA and speaker system as well as our backup generator are not very good at all anymore. Even the chief of the village has asked if we can update them. We are praying for a replacement because the radio program eases the evangelistic efforts of the school and the congregation here in Wotutu as we reach out to over 20,000 people daily from 5 AM to 6 AM, a time when their hearts are still empty of life’s bustles. Because we trust that the hearts of many are empty at that time, we take that advantage to put the words of God there, which will make a difference to those lives. The testimonies are enormous! Please, if you can help us or can tell someone that can help us replace our machines it will be a milestone for us here. You can contact our school coordinator, David Ballard if you are interested in helping in this way.
Comfort Mande and Katie Esowe obeyed the gospel. Our student preachers admonished them beside the river before their baptism. I was there as well observing these new students to see if they needed any instruction or correction in their administration of the event.
Plans
The top item on our agenda is always evangelism as we have given this batch the name of “Revival” as we will be sending them to help bring revival the congregations in the hinterland.
Appreciations
We thank you for your love for the gospel and for all you are doing to make the gospel move. Thanks for your prayers and support. God is watching! Please share this report with others.
Elangwe and family
By His grace Director of BVBIC-Wotutu