First Baptist Bible School in Mbala
Our first Bible School was a success! As Steve was praying and planning the start of Bible School in Mbala, he felt that a different format may help the students better remember what they learn. Bible School is normally held for six days with four courses being taught. It was decided that a two and a half day format with only one or two courses would be more productive. Instead of having three sessions per year, our format will have a session every two months that rotate between the villages we work in. This is a work in progress that will certainly adapt over time to best meet the discipleship needs.
The first Bible School was held at the Kaseshya Church. They had been meeting in the local school up until one week before the Bible school was held. The school started charging rent, so the people began looking for and praying about a piece of land that they could buy.
Just a few months ago, they bought a piece of property and have been hard at work making bricks. All this has been happening during the harvest season! I’m am surprised at this, but it goes to show how serious they are at getting their own place to worship. In order to meet the needs of Bible School, the Kaseshya people constructed a temporary grass building and built a toilet facility. Construction was finished a week before Bible School started.
Leading up to Bible School, Steve was surprised as the applications kept coming in. His expectation was a class of ten people or less. When class began we had eighteen students in attendance! God is good! The students came from five different villages. Two students even came across the border from Tanzania.
For this first session they studied Old Testament Survey I and New Testament Survey I. They had class on Tuesday and Wednesday from 8AM until 6PM followed by examinations on Thursday morning.
Right across the road from the church lives a man who comes to our Bible study during the week. He is a member of another church but he graciously let us do all of our meal preparation at his home. Three women who were not taking the classes did a wonderful job of cooking and serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Other church members opened up their homes for the traveling students to sleep each night. Things went so well that if we didn’t know better, we would think that Bible school in Mbala had been going on for years. The Lord exceedingly and abundantly provided beyond our expectations!
