December 24, 2003

Christmas Eve from Brazil

This is Christmas Eve, and in my mailbox today was a letter from the Willson family, missionaries in Brazil. I thought I would share portions of it with you:

Dear Friends in Christ,

We were caught up in a whirl of activities over the last month and time has
flown by. Praise the Lord for His blessings.

Our whole FAMILY was able to be together. Jon and Joy wanted to keep their permanent visas here in Brazil and a personal gift made it possible for everyone to come, including April and Eliza. They were here for the first
concert of the 100 Voice Choir and for the Cariri BBC graduation. Jon and
Bear participated in special music for the wedding of two of the graduates
and then we headed back to Fortaleza for a little beach and shopping.

The 100 VOICE CHOIR has been a lot of work, but it is very rewarding. Our region of Brazil does not have a strong tradition of sacred music, so the choir has been very well received. Unfortunately, the standard hymnal used by almost all our churches is very poor in Christmas music. Mark
Lounsbrough plans to do this every two years, if God permits.

GRADUATION was held on Friday night, November 28. There were 12
students who studied on campus, one from the extension in Juazeiro do Norte, and fourteen from Petrolina. Please pray for these workers as they enter God’s
harvest field. Eight of the on campus students are on a missions trip to Columbia, traveling up the Amazon River to help missionary Geraldo Fonseca.

On December 15-20, the Bible college FACULTY held its annual evaluation
meeting and had a retreat. Several important decisions were made:

1. The PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN WORK requirement was restructured with the
departure of Peter Brooks, director of the department. For a number of
years we have wanted to include this on our transcripts, but we needed a
more effective means of evaluating the work of the students. This task has
been divided up among the faculty counsellors and hopefully we will have a
clearer picture of what is being accomplished by all of our students. Over
the years, some have been greatly used in building up congregations and
churches, carrying out building projects, founding new churches, etc.

2. The CLASS SCHEDULE has been reformatted, combining elements of the
modular system we have been using and the traditional weekly schedule.
Most of our courses will given during the whole semester, but in larger
blocks of time. We will also have a few modules for a couple weeks in the middle of the semester, coinciding with the missions conference and the Bible
college retreat. This will reduce flexibility for professors to travel, since we
will have classes every week, but it will also increase flexibility for some
activities because of open periods.

3. The faculty voted to recommend to the board of the school that we pursue
ACCREDITATION. For many years, the Ministry of Education and Culture did
not grant any accreditation to religious schools. A few years ago, when it
began to do so, there was some interference in curriculum. Now the Ministry
focuses on the academic level. We are in a good position here at the Cariri
BBC, though there still be a lot of work to gain and maintain accreditation
and to improve our classification.

4. Finally, we took some time to write down some of our DREAMS for the
future.

-- Campus & equipment: We would like to finish the pavement of the road
around the campus and provide two up-to-date computers in the library for
the students to use. We need to continue developing our library. We have
only 6,569 titles, though the quality has improved as we’ve concentrated on
the areas of instruction. A long-term project is to build a music building,
with soundproof practice rooms and an auditorium.

-- Personnel: We need replacements for some of our professors. Jaime
Augusto is approaching 70 (Church History, Doctrine for the Bible Institute
courses, and Pastoral Theology). John and Jean Peterson (Deaf ministry
courses and some teacher certification courses) will be here for another
four years, if God allows. It is their hope that Valdir and Carina will be
a big part of the answer to that need. Both of Valdir’s parents are deaf
and his father is pastor of the deaf church in Campinas, Sao Paulo. We
also need one or two interpreters for deaf students. It is important that
they not only be proficient in sign language, but that they be familiar and
in agreement with the school’s doctrine and phiosophy. We have an
excellent prospect in the area of music in Renato de Lima Brito.

We thank the many people that have sent cards and letters. We depend
on your support. Please pray with us for the ministry here in Brazil. Pray
that God will bring some of these dreams to reality.

In Christ,
Mark and Linda, (Jon, April and Eliza, Joy,) Beth and Bear

Please remember to pray for the Willson family as they labor in Brazil. As you can see, they are hard at work during this holiday season. Pray also that we might be able to join them there permanently as soon as possible.

Posted by Andrew on December 24, 2003 8:27 PM.

Comments

Posted by: Deb at December 29, 2003 8:41 AM