At the Bethany gathering on October 27, Dan Brokke reminded the Bethany community of its calling to “go” to the nations together. We don’t just tell others to “go,” but we go ourselves through prayer, personal involvement and support.  God is working among us and this is a time for deeper involvement in prayer focused on the “places where the church is not…yet.” Dan emphasized Nehemiah 3 & 4 noting that “families worked side by side”, “together in war and construction”.  With these in mind, almost unanimously, those in attendance responded to the call to come alongside the students in a deeper way. With focused prayer initiatives the full community desires to facilitate students and graduates all the way to the field - and stand with them there. These prayer initiatives will begin through circles of prayer for half-hour segments on every other Tuesday (12:30 -1:00) beginning November 8, our half day set apart. Staff and students will choose areas for prayer emphasis from global regions expecting God to move us deeper in commitment to one another and to fulfill His heart’s desire.

BCOM Preview

Twenty-eight prospective students and five parents arrived on campus Thursday afternoon for the college’s campus visit day, called BCOM Preview. They received an orientation and enjoyed the International Dinner. Later they gathered in the Prayer Chapel for worship and the word.

Bethany International Ministries {BIM}

Kerry Olson reports from Mexico City, “Each year as part of our annual church conference, an evangelistic outreach is organized. Church members were encouraged to bring along unsaved family and friends to attend an evangelistic theatrical performance with an altar call to receive Christ as their Savior. This year’s response was off the charts! The church auditorium was packed with 2700 in attendance and 879 people came forward to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior! An amazing response to the Gospel! Please pray for the follow-up activities for those who received Christ. While we recognize this was a work of God, unemployment, economic problems, unrelenting violence and lack of confidence in Mexico’s government have seemed to create an even stronger sense of spiritual need among the population in general.  The apostle Paul stated in Romans 5:20 ‘But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.’ We thank God for being a part of what He is doing and for His grace that continues to abound much more in Mexico.”

Short-term Evangelical Missions {STEM}

One of the benefits of using STEM to facilitate a short-term mission trip is the training. They use a multi-part training to prepare people for cross-cultural ministry. Ordinarily that happens about a month before the team leaves, but in certain cases, they bring the team to one location to spend a couple intensive days together before traveling overseas. That is the case next week. Pray for STEM staff, Adam and Vicky as they train the team, then Adam as he leads this group to prayer walk and serve among an unreached people. They will be overseas November 8-22.

Last Monday and Tuesday the ABHE accreditation site team visited Bethany and read reports, visited with the board, students, graduates, and staff, faculty, and administration personnel. Each day they would research and assess and each evening would write reports.

Our accreditation committee met with the five-member accreditation site team for their final report. The site visit team provided us with several commendations regarding the College.

The second part of the report consisted of 12 suggestions. While we are not required to act on these suggestions, it will be for the best of the College if we do respond to them.

The final part consisted of 11 recommendations. Each of these related to specific requirements of the Standards. The recommendations are areas where we will take action. We will share more on these in the weeks and months ahead.

The ABHE Accreditation Commission will review the report received from the site team and then send a letter to us outlining the recommendations and providing further detail. Overall we are pleased with what we learned from the accreditation site visit.

Kindle

Last Thursday about a dozen students, interns and staff members met to discuss the global challenge of unreached people. Earlier in the day, a ministry intern asked about next steps to form a team to go to the hard places. Later a group of students commented that they are looking at the same thing. God is stirring. Here are four steps we all can do:

1. Ask God to download His heart to you in a new way
2. Research and learn all you can about what He is doing and where there is need
3. Prepare and discover ways that you can serve
4. Join or form a team to meet that need

Let’s Pray

The staff at STEM Ministries appreciates your prayer and support as this is a special season of team recruiting. They hope to send out 40 or more teams made up of 600 or more individuals in the coming year.

Bethany College of Missions is applying for accreditation with The Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) which is not only recognized by the United States Department of Education but also by the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education, the theological education affiliate of the World Evangelical Alliance. The Council is a global community sponsored by eight continental/regional associations of theological schools.

ABHE is governed by its member institutions through a delegate assembly which elects members of both a Board of Directors and a Commission on Accreditation at an annual business meeting. Accrediting decisions are made by the Commission on Accreditation.

Our accreditation five-member site team will be at Bethany from October 10-12, 2011. Besides meeting with our Trustee Board, the team will interview students, staff and faculty.  They will assess the College based on 11 standards that deal with such areas as academic programs, enrollment, faculty, student life and finances.

This past week the MANI Conference was held in Abuja, Nigeria. About 700 African and international leaders met  to address and plan responses to significant needs and opportunities that present themselves. One presenter defined so clearly what an opportunity is: a great need to which there is great resource that can be connected. NEED, RESOURCE, and CONNECTION.  The simplicity of this finds its fulfillment and impact when God is in the midst moving in power.

He then went on to show that the evangelical church on the African continent is the largest in the world. What an untapped resource.  We could not miss that God has positioned Bethany in a favored position to serve what God is doing in Africa today.

Members of our Bethany family have been investing for years into relationship, consulting, teaching, mobilizing, and partnership development. But today is a unique time. The African church is embracing that this is their season to act and respond at a completely different level to their place in the Great Commission. We presented the resource of the Go100 mission training consultation resource and our online Graduate Studies programs. There was a steady stream of interest and connection in both programs. As we also shared the Graduate Studies program with our partner in Abuja, there again was great excitement and interest.

Welcome to the 32 new freshmen who came on campus last week. We are impressed with them and look forward to seeing them grow in understanding and confidence as they embrace God’s calling. Already, they have had significant encounters with the Lord and growth of relationship with each other and the sophomores.

Cambodia

Bethany is partnering with Words of Life Ministries in Cambodia to purchase and install a web press in-country for the printing and distribution of the newest version of the Bible in Khmer.  The $64,000 web press was built in India and last week week was shipped out to port in Cambodia.  A $25,000 container load of Bible paper is on its way from Spain.  These two components should arrive in the port in Cambodia soon.

Please pray for favor with customs in the country as duty can be as high as 100% on this type of equipment.  Praise God for the donors who have given generously to this project.  Bethany’s Partners in Publishing ministry will send two staff members to Cambodia in October to map out the sales and distribution plan for the vision of distributing one million Bibles in country within the next four to five years.  This is a faith-filled project to meet a great need and opportunity.  More than 10,000 Cambodians a month are converting to Christ yet there is a woeful shortage of Bibles at present.  Imagine the impact that a million Bibles can have on this people group movement that is taking place before our very eyes. God has assembled a team of very committed people to help make this project a success.

Short-term Evangelical Missions {STEM}

John P. just returned from leading a recent STEM team to an unreached People Group in Central Asia.  A Twin Cities-based church adopted this group 12 years ago and as part of their strategy to impact this people group partnered with STEM to send seven people from their congregation to prayer walk in strategic locations, participate in conversational English, and encourage the long-term workers they support.  God protected the team and opened many doors for the hope of the Gospel to be shared through MP3 players loaded with culturally relevant Bible studies (100 lessons on The Way of Righteousness), scripture portions, and music.

A team from the Association for Biblical Higher Education will be at Bethany from October 10-12, 2011 to conduct a site visit.  For over a year and a half the College has been in the process to seek accreditation.

The Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) comprises about 200 evangelical postsecondary institutions throughout North America specializing in Biblical ministry formation and professional leadership education. It represents an aggregate student enrollment of 35,000+.

ABHE is an officially recognized “national accrediting association” by the U.S. Department of Education.  Also, it is an officially recognized “faith-based” accrediting agency by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. ABHE is 64 years old.

Bethany College of Missions

The sophomores returned to campus last week and freshmen arrived today. Classes begin Friday!

Short-term Evangelical Missions (STEM) has worked with Bethany College of Missions (BCOM) several times this year; including a great tie-in with the leadership class seniors have been taking the past couple weeks. A group of a dozen or so participated in a STEM team designed to give them real-life experiences as a leader of a short-term mission team. Thanks for your prayers for them; they saw God’s protection and learned more about leadership.

It is always a blessing to have missionary families on campus. At Wednesday chapel David S. (Asia) shared on Paul’s words in I Cor. 9:19-22 about becoming “all things to all men” to reach and win them for Christ. It was such a clear teaching on the missionary call to “go” and “become like” those in another culture, to win even one who would “stay like” their own to in turn reach others in their own culture.

The Bruce Olson story beautifully illustrated seeing this happen in real life. This mission concept was presented by Dr. Ralph Winter at the 1974 Lausanne Conference that refocused the latter half of the 20th century mission movement towards unreached peoples and the role of any person who was moving cross culturally as a missionary.

The political environment that led to the Cultural Revolution in China during the 50-70’s resulted in western missionaries being expelled from China. Chinese national believers prayed, lived, and shared their faith with urgency leading to nearly 100 million new believers in what we know as the underground church. It is a core building block for the church planting movements seen in regions of India and Africa.

We have caught a glimpse of it with our partners in Cambodia. The ultimate goal to “go beyond” can only be realized as those we reach are able to stand on our shoulders and exceed us - to go beyond us. Our work is a platform for something greater through others.

Bethany’s calling to “lead by serving” with global partners is so key to “taking the church to where it is not.” The spirit of these movements and penetration in the hardest and darkest places is found in laying our lives down for people of another culture and for those in the next generation.

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There is a new BCOM video posted on the website “A life worth dying for” - check it out.

Dan Brokke, President, Bethany International

Short Term Evangelical Missions

Here’s the schedule of STEM teams for the remainder of June.  Thank you for your prayers for effective ministry!

• Paraguay: June 10 - 20 This group is working with Mision Betania, a “grandchild” ministry of Bethany International
• Honduras: June 17 - 26 This is a large team of first-timers, mostly teen-agers
• Belize: June 19 - 25 This will be a mixed age team working with a long-time partner who has a radio ministry and family focused heart
• Urban: June 19 - 26 Another group working here at our doorstep

BCOM

Our freshmen are currently taking Introduction to Mission, taught by Steve Eliason, while seniors take Cultural Innovation and Change, taught by Tom Shetler.

Soon-to-be-Interns

Please pray for our students who are home for the summer months. They are raising support for their internships and have opportunities to share with churches, small groups, and individuals about what they will be doing. They are all scheduled to leave in September.

John P. just returned from leading a STEM team to serve with BCOM Grad, Noah, in Asia.  The team spent several hours a day interacting with university students wanting to learn conversational English.  The coffee shop business that Noah runs is a constant hang out place for students.  The team also did Prayer Walking around the University Campus section of the city which is home to 150,000 students and prayed over other strategic locations in the area.  Jessie, recent BCOM Associate of Arts grad, was on this team and was a great representative of BCOM and our Lord.  The team was blessed with several Divine Appointments to share the Gospel with students and answer questions about marriage, purity, purpose and meaning of life.  BCOM grad, Jolean, spent time with the team on the return leg of the trip. Jolean is just completing a year of teaching English to students at a technical university and will be serving at BCOM in the fall.