College, Friends & Ministry

A lot has happened over the past month in our ministry. Classes have started at the Academy and the College. The college class has been a huge encouragement to me and the ministry that God has placed me in. I am teaching Spiritual Formation (mainly focused on practical application of the Spiritual Disciplines). It is only offered to sophomores and it is an elective so it is not required. The class limit was set at 50 and we only had 50 books available. The first class I had 53 students so I knew that they were not all registered for the class. The following week I had 60 students. We made a deal with them that they were responsible for borrowing a book and turning in all assignments but they were welcome in the class. So 60 students are taking the class and seem very eager about learning the disciplines of the Christian life and applying them to their lives. We are using Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald Whitney if you are interested in pursuing Godliness (1 Tim 4:7) through the spiritual disciplines.

Our visitors, the Long’s, have returned to Wichita Falls and it was great having friends from the States! They took tons of pictures while they were here and some of them will be used in making new brochures for ABC as well as for the College and Academy yearbooks. Things at the Academy are going well also. I am enjoying more and more getting to talk about God in relation to history and having a Christian worldview. I am still learning classroom management and those kinds of things that come with teaching middle school students but by the grace of God I am improving. It is helping me rely on God in everything I do because I do not have all the answers or knowledge.

We went to an orphanage about 2 hours away from Lilongwe where 2 ABC graduates are involved in helping organize an orphanage of about 60 children from babies to high school students. Another ABC graduate is a high school teacher in the same trading center (small town) where the orphanage is located. We are praying about if and how God wants us to be involved there. We also visited a feeding program, nursery school and other various projects called Bright Vision with our friends, Kellen and Becca Hiroto. They have helped sponsor this ministry while training a Malawian (who is originally from the area that Bright Vision works in) to actually run the day-to-day ministry. It is also something we are praying about being involved in and if we do get involved, what that would mean. These would be extra ministries added on to our main focus at ABC. We truly believe that through education and the ministry at the clinic we can have a more broad, long term impact than by any other means. That does not mean we will not be involved with these other things, it just means our main focus is our ministry at ABC.

Thank you for praying for us, loving us and encouraging us in Christ! We appreciate all of you and thank God for you! If you ever have questions please let us know!

Because of Jesus,

Jeff