We send you greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Colleagues
Dennis and Coletta Shelly will be spending Christmas in the US with their son and daughter but be back in time for the new semester to start in January. We are expecting a new family to join the work at Kagoro soon. Rick and Alanna Creighton are originally from Northern Ireland but have been living in England for some years. They have three young children (the youngest, Jack, was born in October) and SIM is renovating a house at the Seminary for them to use. They hope to arrive in mid-February so pray for them as they make this relocation. Though both Rick and Alanna have been to Nigeria before for short trips, moving here to live will be a major adjustment. Rick is presently completing a doctorate in ethics and theology and will be lecturing at the Seminary. We expect Alanna will be fully occupied at home.
Another answer to prayer for teachers is the arrival of Dr. Gabriel Olaniyan who had been in pastoral ministry for some years and has recently completed a doctorate in Christian Education. We have needed and were praying for someone in this field of study so he will definitely strengthen the faculty in his area of expertise.
Home assignment
We will be back in the UK in December and start taking meetings in January 2012. Pray for the Provost as he selects someone to take on the work of the registrar while I am away. During this time of ‘home assignment’ we will be staying in a house on the Ballygowan road out of Belfast owned by our friends Rev. Mark and Elaine Shaw who are in the Presbyterian ministry in Strabane. We thank the Lord for this provision especially since the apartment we have been using in recent years isn’t available.
We are looking forward to seeing many of you soon. Our contact details will be the usual ones for our times in the UK with phones being: 07810203459 for Debbie and 07833145995 for me. You should be able to contact us on these numbers from 15th December. Apart from these, our usual email addresses will work such as david.colvin@sim.org but if you want to send large attachments (i.e. greater than 1M) please use colvin@runbox.com. Please address any normal letters for us to my Mum’s address: 29 Woodvale Crescent, Moneymore, Co. Londonderry, BT45 7PT. Thanks.
Graduation
Our last few weeks here will be busy as we try to finish teaching, marking and packing some things away. The graduation is set for 3rd December and the semester ends just one week later. It is always great to see our students graduate and go off into full-time service. Pray for them as they each seek God’s guidance for the next step (Psalm 31:3).
Curriculum review
Thanks for praying for the curriculum review. Our committee of eight spent three days at the SIM guest house in Miango to work on this. We were able to finalize the contents of the new post-graduate diploma (PGD) in theology and the PGD in Christian Education. These are for people who have a first degree in another discipline and want to switch their specialization. For those who want to study at the master’s level, the PGD can bridge the gap between previous study and the MA programmes offered at the Seminary. The committee also streamlined the design of the five MA programmes. While we were doing things like this, Debbie was catching up with some marking.
Building projects
A Nigerian businessman is sponsoring the construction of a new multi-purpose hall. (It hasn’t made it onto Google Earth yet but you can see some Seminary buildings at 9º, 26”, 25N and 8º, 23”, 15E.) When it is finished, we should be able to hold the graduation services inside. The Seminary Chapel seats only 500 people and the attendance at the graduation is over 1,000 people. The two-storey, 16-unit, married students’ dorm is still under construction and a recent gift from the US should finish the walls. If you want more information on these and other projects check the Seminary’s web page www.kagoroseminary.com and its links.
Visitors
We are happy to receive visitors here at Kagoro. Malcolm and Liz McGregor of SIM International were here earlier in the year. Recently Mary Crawford, who is one of the regional representatives for SIM in England, was here to see the work of SIM in this country. Dr. Paul Todd was also in Nigeria at the same time. He is back with SIM and works with the Africa Christian Textbooks (ACTS) ministry. Debbie is on the ACTS Board, by the way.
As always, thanks for your prayerful support and please keep on praying for us as we travel and take meetings in the next few months in the UK (Acts 14:27).
Thanks again,
David and Debbie Colvin
