We are thankful to the Lord for his many blessings over these last couple of months, and we rae grateful to all those who are upholding us in prayer. We hope you will be encouraged as you read the latest report of our work:
Teaching in April
The academic year is now well under way at our theological centres around the country. In April I spent two weeks leading a workshop on expository preaching in Iquitos, which was a real blessing to the church leaders who considered it the most helpful and practical course they had taken on the subject. The course was based around Ramesh Richard’s (Dallas Theological Seminary and Rreach) 7-step method. Meanwhile, David Silva was up in the mountains in Jauja teaching on the book of Romans. Back in Lima Daniel Caballero taught a brand new course on Christian ethics to two different groups of students in Barranco.
Teaching in May
In the month of May we opened our new centre in Comas in the north of Lima. I taught the first module on New Testament Greek which was very well received. We had 21 students sign up for the course, of whom most finished the course well. A few of the students were unable to complete the course due to health problems over the course of the month. The students who did finish the course showed great enthusiasm, meeting up between classes to study and go over the material. One student was even posting voculary and grammer charts online to help his fellow students. Please pray that these students will continue their studies with the same enthusiasm.
Meanwhile, I was also teaching a course on planning and leading worship in Barranco to mostly HeartCry missionaries. We studied the biblical principles and looked at the history of worship down through the ages, as well as considering practical aspects and the different elements of a worship service one by one. David Silva was busy during the month teaching our first year students in Barranco an introduction to expository preaching. Last week they all gave a short message for their final exam.
Conference in Santa Cruz, Bolivia
From 29th April to 2nd May I had the privilege of attending a conference in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, for theological educators in Latin America. It was run by AETAL (Evangelical Theological Association for Latin America). The subject was curriculum development and the speakers included two well known figures in the field worldwide: Dr. Fritz Deininger and Dr. Steve Hardy. I had the privilege of interpreting for Dr Deininger (English to Spanish fortunately, as my German is almost non-existant!). Dr Hardy spoke in Portuguese, as he has spent many years in Brazil and Mozambique. It was also good to spend time with some of the leading theological educators in Latin America, sharing ideas and getting to know each other.
Promotional video and website
Towards the end of May we took some video footage for a promotional video to attract students to study with us. We hope that within the next week or two it will have been edited and will be available on our website. Eduardo has been busy with the website keeping it up to date and adding new features. We now have the start of a small electronic library which will provide resources for pastors and church leaders. Also, thanks to a 2-day course Eduardo was able to attend which was run by Google, he has now been able to finish setting up our online study platform. Please pray as we hope to pilot this with students later in the year. Thank you once again for prayerfully supporting this ministry.
