On the first weekend in September, I had the honor of preaching in the church Missionary David Maskey started nearly 30 years ago in the southeast part of Nigeria. That Friday was the conclusion of our 7th Student Missions Institute for Training in Evangelism for that church. There were 130 young people from 16 churches who enrolled to learn about how to conduct children’s Bible Clubs; they ran 26, five-day clubs, with over 1,300 children enrolled and nearly 700 professing salvation. On Sunday, a Baby Dedication was held for the family of the church’s national co-pastor; Pastor Royal and his wife are both graduates of our seminary.
Every semester for the last two years, our Providence Baptist College & Seminary students have done a concentrated evangelistic outreach to benefit a local church outside of Abuja. Earlier this year, they went to Praise & Glory Baptist Church of Makurdi, Benue State. Their soul winning, street preachings, and film showings yielded 105 salvations during the week; that Sunday, 10 of their converts visited the church, and 6 were baptized. The pastor, our graduate, remarked that “the vision of the college to have these outreaches is very instrumental in church planting.” This semester, for six days in October, our students traveled to Cross River State to help our graduate, Pastor Michael Solomon, at IBC Ogoja. These trips have proven to be great experiences for the current students and are mentioned often by our graduates.
Our four new missionary couples have fully jumped into being involved in our ministry training schools and local church plants. They are busy with soul winning, pulpit supply, church visitation, school outreaches, Prison Ministry, Bible Clubs (and follow-up on parents of the Bible Club kids), discipleship programs, home Bible studies, youth meetings, and college chapel preaching, along with our regular schedule of attending church services, staff meetings, conferences, and camps. The most exciting to me, though, is the number of new institutes that have been started this year with their involvement. In nine different Bible-believing churches during 2022, our Temple Baptist Institute curriculum has been introduced during weekend programs, mainly conducted alongside Evangelist Tunde Ajayi. The weekend program consists of outreach with the church members, sermons that encourage more members to train for the ministry, planning sessions with the pastor to determine the best course schedule, and sample classes to introduce the institute concept to everyone. We are already seeing the effectiveness of these programs to get more people equipped for service.
Now that the roof is on our seminary dormitory building, we are moving to the next phase of our plans for the second floor. Recently, about $8,300 came in, allowing us to do some finishing work on the flooring and walls to get the building ready for the ceiling (estimated at $7,000) and floor tiles (likewise costing about $7,000). The remaining windows and doors will cost about $5,000, and then we will move on to the various plumbing and electrical works. Already we can begin using some of the space, but we would be glad for any additional donations to help us complete the project. Thanks so much for praying!
Believing God,
Mark Holmes, written 19 November 2022
