BZeal http://bzeal.antville.org Zeal for God's house [You are receiving this email as a subscriber of the Brazil list at associate.com. See information at end for unsubscribing. Also, see the website link above for pictures of the report.] Training Program Progresses in Belo Horizonte by Eddison Fowler (Randal's note: I was the first director of the Belo Horizonte nucleus of the National Bible School, and continue with the national Board of Directors as Vice- President of Public Relations, so it's progress has always been of interest to me.) We call our school in Belo Horizonte "SBN-BH" [National Bible School -BH] so I imagine you can guess what curriculum we follow. SBN has obligatory courses that must be taken, but it also allows a lot of leeway in choosing courses that the local nucleus deems necessary for its own setting. In Belo Horizonte we stress local church leadership, evangelism, and missions, so we choose more courses that prepare workers in those areas. We were the first nucleus to complete the requirements to be accepted as a nucleus of the "National Bible School" as we call it in English. We have not stopped or paused our activities once since then, although we have had our highs and lows in participation in the classes and financial support of the school. At the present, however, we are encouraged by the interest of the churches in the Belo Horizonte area, as well as students from other cities and states participating in the school and enrolling for next year. We are encouraging all of the local churches to send their workers to SBN-BH so they can be better prepared to do their work and to better divide and preach and teach the Word. The Lord has blessed us with about a dozen good local teachers for SBN-BH, besides those invited from outside BH to give intensive courses. This gives our students a good variety of teachers and a great source of brethren to call upon when they have specific needs. No one is good in everything, so we try to assign each course to the local teacher who is stronger in that area, or invite someone from outside BH when we know someone else who could do a better job. Four of our local teachers have completed masters degrees in Bible or missions and some of the others have more than one degree or diploma from seminaries and universities. Almost half of these were trained in SBN-BH. All of our teachers are volunteers. None are paid specifically to teach in the school although we sometimes pay some travel expenses when necessary. We are making plans to raise more financial support and make some important changes so that the school can better serve the students and the Lord's church. Our library is fair, but we are making great strides to bring it up to a level that will help the teachers and students to be better prepared. We have two computers, a scanner, a printer, and access to the Internet, but we need to upgrade our equipment to better serve the school. We have plans to improve SBN-BH's preparation both academically and practically. We truly believe that our school is one of the best in Brazil, but we praise God that brethren from all over the country are seriously preparing others to work well in the Lord's kingdom. __________ Eddison is a missionary in Belo Horizonte. His family and the Mathenys arrived in Brazil together, working as part of a team for several years. ----- BZeal focuses on the progress of the gospel in Brazil and around the world. Please share this email with friends.