Dear Friends,
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us"
John 1:14
What an amazing truth, that an almighty, all powerful, sovereign, creator God took human form, not just as a man but even as a little helpless baby! May the truth of the incarnation touch all our hearts afresh as we celebrate His birth this Christmas.
We are truly thankful to our almighty God for the blessing you have been to us all at BTC over the last 3 years since the college began in January 2000. Without your sustaining prayers and support this work of teaching and training pastors and evangelists for this needy area of Northeast Sri Lanka would have been fruitless and probably ceased long ago. So thank you for praying.
November Highlights
Pastor Phil Wells of Calvary Evangelical Church, Brighton, visited us in
November and accomplished a mini marathon teaching the gospel of Mark for 17
hours in just two and a half days. Exhausting for him, but a real blessing and
gift for our students having their eyes opened to many new insights from this
activity packed gospel. Our other visitors were a Visiting Evaluation Team
(VET) from Asia Theological Association (ATA) who came to assess the college
for accreditation of our B.Th. and Diploma programs. The team led by Dr.
Narendra John (India) spent two days examining all areas of BTC life, our
Programs, Faculty, Curriculum, Administration Finance, Library, Student
Services, and Facilities, looking at all our records and interviewing various
personnel. Their final report was a real encouragement commending many aspects
of BTC - we are on the right road!! Based on this report we expect to be accredited for our B.Th. and Diploma programs possibly by June 2003, on the condition that we increase our core faculty and complete the full B.Th. cycle. We are therefore hopeful to hold our first graduation in August 2003. Please consider joining us for this special occasion of celebration and thanksgiving as our first batch of students graduate!
New Challenges for Ravi and Pratheep.
Two students, Ravi and Pratheep, will be taking a break from their studies during 2003, since both their churches have recalled them for urgent ministry. Ravi will be taking over the pastorship of his church, Gospel Grace Church, Mannar while his pastor, goes on study leave. Pradeep has been asked to go to Jaffna to plant a sister church of Faith Tabernacle, Trincomalee. We sincerely hope that they will both be free to continue their studies in 2004. Please pray for each of them in their demanding new assignments.
New year, new students
As our fourth year begins January 2003, please pray that the Lord would prepare the new students coming to us: Pratheepan from Batticaloa, Joseph Anthony from Nuwara Eliya and Suganthi, from the Methodist church in Kalmunai.
Have a wonderful and much blessed Christmas, rejoicing in our Lord's miraculous birth!
Thank you again for your prayers,
In our Lord's service,
Dr. Charles Hoole
Principal
|
|
|
|
