In the last couple months, two ministries I am involved in have hit significant milestones. First, two translation projects have completed a major stage on the road to printing the whole Bible in their language. Second, our school of theology has begun a new master’s program. Praise the Lord with us for the progress of these ministries!
Two Bible Translation Projects Hit a Milestone
For the last few years, we have been working on quality checking for the Sara Madjingay and Sara Kaba Dem Bibles (quality checks are a series of rigorous checks to ensure the consistency and quality of the entire Bible translation). In our workshops in January and February, we finally reached the end of all the quality checks we needed to do. We aren’t quite ready to print just yet, but the finish line is in sight, and we are excited!The next task is to make final preparations to submit the text of the translation for approval by the team at the BI headquarters in Grand Rapids. For the past few weeks, I’ve been working hard on polishing up many technical details, such as checking the consistency of paragraph breaks, punctuation, and formatting of cross-references. Once the text is submitted and approved, the translation teams will need to read the entire Bible through to check they are satisfied with the translation. After that, the translation text will be formatted, as it will appear on the printed Bible. Then the team will check the translation one final time, and finally, we will be able to send it to be printed!
Please pray for us as we finish these exciting final stages of these two translation projects!
The Baptist School of Theology in Balimba Becomes a Seminary
For many years, there were no Baptist Bible schools in Chad that offer higher than a bachelor’s degree, our Baptist pastors who want higher levels of theological training had to travel to a seminary in neighboring Cameroon to study. The expense of traveling such a long way to study has prevented many academically capable Chadians from being able to seek a higher degree. So for the past several years, the Baptist School of Theology here in Balimba has been working on developing a masters’ degree program here in Chad. That vision was finally realized this month, as the first masters’ module was held with nine students, officially transforming our Bible school into a seminary. The courses will be taught as modules, allowing the students who take masters’ degree to continue their pastoral ministries while they study.Since there are not enough Chadian men qualified to teach at the graduate level, the seminary in Cameroon has agreed to help out our new seminary by sending some of their professors to Chad several times a year to help teach the module classes. I am continuing to teach Greek and Hebrew at the undergraduate level, but I am excited to see this growth in our little Bible school here in Balimba!
One important need for the masters’ degree students is for books for their studies, but since most of them pastor churches outside the Sarh area, they do not have regular access to the school library, so they will need to get their own books. If you would like to help students to purchase books for their studies, please send your gift to Baptist Mid-Missions marked for the fund Chad Shepherd’s Bag.
Please pray with us for the teachers and the students of this new ministry endeavor.
Thank you for your faithful prayers and support.
In Christ's Service,
Anna Beth Wivell
