07 Feb Joy of equipping home-grown leaders
Teaching and training can be both a challenging and an exhilarating task, especially when it has to be juggled with general administrative duties.
As the founding dean of the Nepal Theological Academy (NTA) in Kathmandu, I can testify to this. But praise God for his faithfulness; NTA celebrated its first anniversary on Oct 21, 2016. We invited our new board secretary to preach to our students. There was also a cultural show.
We also thank God for empowering us to conduct a capacity-building seminar on Oct 18 and 19 for about 12 seminaries and church-based training programmes. It was a milestone development for a country like Nepal, which is enjoying fast church growth but lacking in higher theological education.
About 60 people attended the seminar, which was aimed at finding the potential of each institution and encouraging them to build their capacity to the fullest.
I was also in Godavari for five days in November jointly conducting the Micah Network programme sponsored by Tearfund International. It was my first time attending such a seminar. We hope to collaborate with Tearfund and Micah Network for some programmes in the future.
Regardless of the hard work, we as servants of the Lord are encouraged by testimonies that glorify His name.
This is the testimony of one student at NTA:
“As I am committed to serving God in Nepal, I am where I need to do my further studies so as to have sound Biblical teaching. God opened the way for me to study at the Nepal Theological Academy. I am being trained in my own country and context while I also get exposure to the expert teaching from western and eastern theologians.”
Please pray for my teaching and intensive module in January in Bangalore, and the MTh planning. — Abraham Saggu, NTA, Kathmandu