The Bible School
How and why did we start a bible school in Sudan?
In August of 2006, my journey in Sudan began. David Kaya, Dana Crawford, Bob Funk, and I went to Rumbek, Sudan. Through Dana, we had a connection Rumbek we were going to explore. (Since I don’t know if that connection wants his name published, I’ll leave it out.) Once on the ground, we teamed up with a local church and held a church-planting/EvangeCube training. In less than two days, the church gathered about 35 folks together for this training. In the 40 or so countries e3 Operates in part of our model hinges upon this training. At its best and most basic, you gather pastors and church leaders together for a three-to-five day conference. Leaders who “get” the vision for church planting tend to bubble up. We connect with those leaders and continue to help them with church planting. Part of that connection is to bring a team of Americans. Those Americans partner up with members of the church and translators. Together, they go to the area where the local pastor/leader wants to plant a new church. For a week, they share the Gospel and gather and disciple the new believers. The new believers become the beginning of the new church that is shepherded by the the pastor’s disciple, associate, or the pastor himself.
At our training in Rumbek, our primary translator really caught the vision. In fact, he went out and planted two churches. That next February we brought a team to help give those baby churches a little push. Then on the second day, I learned of a problem: our translator had planted one church where one wife lived, and a second where his second wife lived. It was a painful experience that we got through okay. But I was beginning to learn.
As I spent more time traveling throughout Sudan, I met more pastors, With a war that lasted from 1983 to 2005, the pastors were almost universally young and had no formal training. Some established pastors preached a works-based Gospel. For example, if you talk with their congregants, they might believe that just by going to church and being baptized they were going to heaven. At this point, the lesson was blindingly obvious: What Sudan lacks most is leaders. Translated to the church, she lacks biblically trained pastors who understand and live out sound doctrine.
Our response was to start a bible school. In fact, as usual, David Kaya was ahead of me on this. He and two of his closest friends and advisors, Edward Dima and Kenneth Dila had begun a small training “school” years earlier in their refugee camp. After coming back home to Sudan, they had dreamed of starting up a new school. And they knew far better than I how desperate a need existed.
One of the principles David and I operate by is to start small and cheap. After we work out the bugs, we know what to grow and what to let die. In that spirit, we started the bible school under three trees on the grounds of First Baptist Kajo Keji. Edward and Kenneth chose Bible Training Curriculum for Pastors (BTCP) as the curriculum. Both seminary trained at Global Theological Seminary, they took on the teaching duties as well. We recruited students from all over Southern Sudan, Uganda and Congo. In a few months we were full and international.
The beginning
As 2007 progressed, David asked for teachers from the U.S. to come. I began praying about who I could approach. God laid Jim Menne on my heart, a friend in seminary in San Diego. Jim agreed to not only come and teach, but to intern with e3. He asked what the Sudanese wanted him to teach and they replied, “The book of Romans.” While I might have died having to sort through all the theology in Romans, God had prepared Jim already with an exhaustive study, so he eagerly and capably agreed. By this point we hired Joyce Muraa to administer the school along with the nursery and primary schools that ran on the church grounds. We were housing and feeding the 42 bible school students along with about 300 children. The bible school students, split into two classes. They would attend school for three months, then take a month off. The program is a two-year program and while they’re in class, they also help pastor local churches, they work on church-planting campaigns, and help in the community. At the end of the two years, they’ll spend one full month far in the bush as missionaries as their final practicum.
Jim Menne
That Fall, one of our dorms, a tukel, had its roof collapsed by surging rain. David wanted to build a dormitory that could house all the students (40). We were low on those funds because we’d just built a vocational center. At this center, not only could the community--primarily women--come learn to sew, but our bible school students could learn a skill here to help support themselves once they finish their studies. Also that Fall David Kaya spoke to Trinity Chapel Bible Church who responded to the need and gave the majority of money to build the dorm.
First Dorms, Tukels
The New Dorm
Our students had moved into the mother church for the teaching time. The teaching time would be interrupted with rain, all the small children would flood into the church disrupting everything. Edward, Kenneth, and David now needed a classroom, and God brought a man in February who saw the need, caught the vision, and gave enough for us to build the foundation and walls for two classrooms and two offices.
Edward Dima Teaching
New Classroom
In the Spring of 2008, God brought Trinity’s pastor over, Ted Wueste, to teach in the bible school. His assignment: Daniel and Revelation. Again, he didn’t blink. Ted loves to teach and enjoyed the entire experience. Things have continued to progress nicely and in September 2008, God brought our third U.S. teacher over: Pastor Fred Tow of Houston Chinese church. Pastor Fred taught, “What they don’t teach you in seminary.” On that same trip, God also brought Prestonwood Baptist Church. Seeing the unfinished classroom and catching the vision for equipping Sudanese pastors, they gave the money to roof and finish the classrooms and enough left over to start the foundation a multi-use dining hall facility.
Ted Wueste and Class
Fred Tow Teaching
Our first class will graduate in June 2009. Our hope for the future is to make the school self sufficient financially. Secondly, we want to connect to the right US seminary for a partnership. Third, is in the meantime have more US teachers come and teach. Fourth is to add more Sudanese teachers. Edward and Kenneth carry a heavy burden and need relief.
We’ll see what God does now…
Posted by on 10/29 at 01:59 PM
Awesome, I hope to be in a position to supply some instructors for you early next year.
Posted by Todd Szalkowski on 10/29 at 03:58 PMPage 1 of 1 pages