Dear Friends,
Yet another term has come and gone since
our last report was sent out in November
some encouraging events and some quite
testing. Let us bring you up to date on our
present situation and highlight a few events
of this past term at BTC.
We continue to be truly grateful to our
sovereign Lord for his gracious work of
redemption in this land that is predominantly
Buddhist and Hindu. and the privilege of
serving his church here. Throughout the
island the churches are growing, and with it
an increasing need for theological education
and training. To destroy God's work the
enemy is also actively at work within the
churches, often proclaiming "another gospel"
- pluralism, liberalism, prosperity, or third
wave. Consequently, quite a few new churches
are getting filled with baptized pagans, and
many more are filled with mere infants,
lacking in spiritual discernment and maturity
and thus easily swayed by the array of new
teachings. The only antidote to these spiritual
ills afflicting the church in Sri Lanka is to
place the Bible in the hands of the people of
God, prepare them for true spiritual combat
by empowering them with the Word of God.
The Cyclone
On Tuesday 26 Dec 2000 a cyclone
hit Trincomalee plunging the town back into
the dark ages for five days with no
electricity and only water from the wells. It
rained all Christmas night and then the storm
began in earnest on Boxing morning. There
was extensive damage throughout the area,
with trees being uprooted, posts and wires
being brought down and sent crashing into
houses, many people had to move out of their
homes, including some of our students, Pastor
Jayantha Fernando, Pastor Errol Joseph and
Joel who were mentioned in the previous
newsletter. The college building lost three
8ft X 4ft asbestos roof tiles, and the back
wall of the hostel was swept away by the sea,
including part of a new room that had just
been built to accommodate our new students
coming this term. The roof was blown off the
new girl's hostel..
On the 27th Joel came to Trinco town looking
for an alternative place for his family to stay
and ended up fixing the Baldaeus roof. Joel's
family found refuge in a house close by and
amazingly the very next day his wife gave
birth to their third child a baby boy. The
repairs to the hostel were done just in time
for the beginning of term but the girl's hostel
took longer so that 2 stayed in the college
and 2 with the Hoole family for the first
month and a half of term. A few brothers and
sisters in Colombo responded to an appeal and
gave assistance to the students to repair
their homes, Joel was even able to build
himself a new cadjan house! That is real
national fellowship!
New additions to the Baldaeus family
On Tuesday 16 January Jaqui
Hoole was admitted to the Trinco hospital at
7.30am and a boy was born at 11.43 - 4.2 kg.
His name is Mahilyesan Stephen Hoole -
Mahilyesan means 'joy who belongs to Jesus'.
The doctors were very helpful and allowed
Jaqui to leave the hospital at 7pm the same
day At the time of writing Jeyamary has just
delivered a baby boy by caesarian section, yet
another to the Baldaeus family.
Celebration!
Wednesday 31 January marked
the first anniversary of BTC. Interestingly it
was the students who brought the date to our
attention, saying that they wanted to do
something special. They organised a
thanksgiving service instead of the usual
chapel service. Special food was given at our
usual Wednesday Fellowship lunch and some
guests invited. It was a real time of rejoicing.
Now that the student body is that much
bigger and more varied the students really do
enjoy themselves together, especially when
there are opportunities to celebrate!
Battles for everyone!
BTC as a whole as well as
individual students and staff have been
experiencing a number of battles over the
past term. Sadly as so often happens much of
the opposition has come from believers
rather than folk outside the churches. For
example, one pastor suddenly arrived at BTC
one day and withdrew the two students from
his church, claiming that BTC taught
cessationism, even though other students
testified to the contrary. A local Pentecostal
senior pastor has been endeavouring to stop
three other students from continuing their
studies at BTC. When he found his efforts
fruitless he proceeded to undermine one
student's (Joel) ministry by ordering Joel's
congregation to return to his own church for
worship each Sunday. However all of them
continue to meet with Joel for Bible teaching
each evening!
Third Wave leaders from Colombo visited the
neighbouring Polonnaruwa area recently, a
region very sacred to Buddhist being full of
ancient monuments. Their rituals of shouting
and binding, cursing and rebuking provoked
intense hostility from the local population,
which was then unleashed on other local
church leaders irrespective of their
connections to the particular church involved.
(The attack on the specific church was
reported in April E.N.). One student, Pastor
Jayantha Fernando, received a summons to
court and was remanded much to the
consternation of his wife Annie. (The two
other pastors more directly associated with
the incident never turned up at court!)
Thankfully he was released after a few hours,
but had to leave secretly over a back wall
since the building was surrounded by angry
mobs. In the light of these destructive Third
Wave activities Charles wrote an article
`Truth about Prayer Warfare' for a local
Christian magazine, but although the editor
endorsed it, all the significant references to
the Third Wave activities had mysteriously
disappeared from the final printed article.
Such incidences highlight how real the battle
is for those who hold to Biblical truths in the
Sri Lankan church scene.
Growth
Despite the battles the college has
continued to grow steadily attracting
candidates from all over the island, including
the Hill country and the South. At the end of
the our first year as a college we had 8
students and most of these continued on into
their second year. 9 others joined us, forming
a student body of 13 Tamil speakers (11 men
and 2 women) and 4 Sinhalese (1 man and 3
women). It has been encouraging to see the
relationships between the students grow
especially with a number of more mature and
experienced students joining us.
Mannar Extension Centre
We are presently looking forward
to the opening of the first ever long distance
learning center, based in Mannar. An inaugural
service will be held on 17th April followed by a
modular course taught by Nepoleon. This
center will work in close association with the
local fellowship of evangelical pastors and
enable BTC to serve the separatist LTTE
controlled Vanni region more effectively as
travel from there to Mannar is comparatively
free from restrictions. Courses will be taught
by local lecturers with the addition of faculty
members from main campus teaching modular
courses during the holidays.
Support
This term we have found
ourselves scraping the bottom a number of
times and been forced to delay paying some
bills. Last Friday we received the very
encouraging news of an anonymous donation of
1000 pounds sterling, almost enough to see us
through another month. We need to build up
our support base if BTC is to continue.
Thank you for your interest in the work of
Baldaeus Theological College, please pray with
us over these matters and together may we
see our soveriegn God build a church in Sri
Lanka that will truly be to his glory and the
extension of his kingdom.
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