Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! We pray it will be a year of learning more of the Lord and increasing in our love for Him, Phil 1:9-11. Pray along with us that it will be a year when more people will be won for Christ and the church worldwide will be strengthened in spite of all the enemy is doing to try and destroy it.

We are praising the Lord that one of our students who just graduated, Micah Bulus, has been appointed as Associate Pastor of a church in Kaduna. We are so impressed by his godly character and his commitment to Christ. At graduation he received the award for best all-round student and last week he brought us a list of names of those he has led to the Lord recently. Please pray for him, his wife and their four small children as they adjust to a new environment. Pray for a fruitful ministry for him and other former students who are beginning pastoral ministry.

Sadly, there were bombs in Jos on Christmas Eve and one in Abuja on New Years' Eve. Many have lost their lives and many were injured. The nation needs much prayer for peace and stability in this election year. Pray that God's people would maintain their witness and be kept safe. Thankfully, all is peaceful in Kagoro.

I wonder what kind of gifts you received at Christmas? We were blessed to receive a live chicken, eggs, yams and coffee!! We enjoyed celebrating the greatest Gift of all with Canadian and Korean friends. We also had visits from some of our students who didn't go home for the break. Between Christmas and New Year we were marking papers. There are still more to mark but we've made good progress and should finish before the beginning of the semester.

We arrived in Miango this morning so the worship team can practice for the conference which begins tomorrow afternoon. David and the others are singing their hearts out! We are looking forward to the times of Bible teaching, worship and fellowship. Both David and I are leading small groups after the main sessions in the morning. These times will be spent in discussing the message and in prayer.

Our neighbours in Kagoro, Dennis and Coletta Shelly, return from their home assignment on Saturday morning. Please pray for them as they set up home again and get ready for classes which begin on the 17th January.

The Seminary's admissions process begins on Monday, 10th January. Pray that it will run smoothly and those that the Lord has called to train for service will be accepted for studies. The returning students should be back by the 14th.

Thanks so much for you faithful prayers during 2010. We continue to need them.

Love and God Bless,

Debbie and David

December Update

Dear friends,

We send you greetings in the Name of our Lord.

Some semesters seem busier than others and this has been one of them. Thank you for praying we would get through November. Both preaching engagements at the seminary went well. One Sunday sermon was from Revelation 17 and the other chapter 18. I have never preached from those chapters before so I learned something and hope people in the congregation gained something also. Next week is exam week after which we will not be teaching but need to mark the exams and written assignments.

Graduation

One hundred and twenty students graduated on 27th November. About one half of these were at the B.A. level but we had our first seven master’s graduates this time. The service was well attended and surprisingly short at less than three hours. Pray for the graduates as they plan what to do next. Many of them are already pastors, missionaries, or teach the Bible in schools, but some will be looking for their first work assignment.

ACTS board

Debbie is on the African Christian Textbooks (ACTS) board. She has a meeting on Monday 6th which prepares for the board meeting on 13th December. The director of ACTS is Dr Sid Garland of Mission Africa. ACTS has been very helpful by importing theological books for sale here and also publishing and printing books written by mainly local authors. Many of the books in our seminary library have been purchased through ACTS.

Outreach teams

As usual, a number of our students will be away over the holiday to preach the gospel. Some are going to Chad, others to Cameroun and some will work in this country. Pray for safe travel and fruitful ministry (Col. 1:6).

Christmas

This year we will spend Christmas at Kagoro. Cheryl and Donna Pridham will join us for the main meal on Christmas Day. Our neighbours, Dennis and Coletta Shelly, are still in the US and will be spending the season with their son and daughter. Dennis and Coletta are booked to return in early January 2011 so we look forward to having them back at Kagoro.

Thank you again for your prayers and we pray you will enjoy the Christmas season.

Yours in Christ,

David and Debbie

November prayer letter

Dear praying friends,

We send you greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus.

We are rejoicing that the Lord has met our support needs for the year and that He has also provided the spiritual resources for the demands of ministry. Thank you for partnering with us through your sacrificial giving and the sacrifice of time spent in prayer. The semester has been full of activity especially in terms of speaking engagements for David. We have also proofread huge amounts of our colleagues’ written work for books and Ph.D. and Master’s theses. This year the denomination’s theme is 2 Corinthians 5:7 and we are continually challenged to “walk by faith, not by sight.” Pray we would stay connected to the Vine (John 15:5) and maintain our focus on Him in the midst of our busy schedule.

Otukpo

Praise the Lord for answered prayer for the conference in Otukpo. We were kept safe on the long journey and the response to the messages exceeded our expectation! We were very conscious of your prayers. Thanks. Please pray that those who committed and recommitted their lives to Christ would grow in their faith and stay strong in the Lord. Pray too that the Prayer and Witnessing Team would see many more come to Christ through their outreach programmes.

Graduation

Preparations for graduation on 27th November are underway. Please pray for those who are working hard to get everything in place. Pray that the students would know the Lord’s guidance as they serve Him (2 Tim. 2:15). It is expected that 118 students will graduate, among them the first to gain Master’s degrees from the Seminary.

December Outreach

This is the time of the year when the students are being mobilised for involvement in various evangelistic programmes during the Christmas break. Two groups of students plan to go to Chad and Cameroon and one group will work locally alongside missionaries from the denomination’s missions wing. The teams need the Lord’s protection and empowering as they share the Gospel in new places. Pray for a fruitful ministry.

SIM Spiritual Life Conference

We always look forward to our times of prayer, Bible teaching, worship and fellowship at our annual conference in January (5th-9th). The great food (especially freshly made donuts) is also a highlight! This year David will be part of the team leading the worship. They would value prayer as they select songs, practice together and lead us in worship.

Thanks again for your prayers.

Debbie and David

October update

Dear friends,

Greetings from Kagoro in the name of our Lord Jesus.

I, (Debbie) have been teaching Psalms to two classes so the subject of praising God is much on my mind. Join with us in praising the Lord for answered prayers last month. We praise the Lord for good health and His protection on the roads, in our home and in this community. We are praising Him for help given in the preaching engagements, meetings and classes we were involved in. We praise Him for the way He uses His people to encourage us and bless us through their faithful prayers and giving. We praise Him too for the joy of serving Him in the seminary. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6.

The calendar for October is full so we are asking for more prayer and reasons to praise the Lord in the month ahead. Next Tuesday, our SIM Director and his wife, Phil and Janne Andrew, are coming to visit for the day. Please pray that this visit will be helpful in giving Phil insight into the nature of the ministry in Kagoro. We also seek prayer for more people to join us in serving the Lord at the seminary.

On Friday, David will attend the Seminary Primary School Board meeting and on Saturday he will take part in a sub-committee of the Seminary Board. The good news is that we will have our one week mid-semester break from 11th-15th October. We plan to go to Jos for a couple of days and do our marking. It will be good to have a break from teaching.

Saturday 16th October will be a fund raising event for the Primary school. David will take the devotions at one of the singles' dorms on the 18th and will preach in the seminary on the 25th on Daniel chapter 8. A staff member will get married on the 30th but we haven't decided if we will go or not. Here, everyone is invited to the wedding.

Meanwhile, David and his secretary need the Lord's help as they make preparations for the graduation which will hold on 27th November. This is a busy time as a lot of details have to be in order before the event. We expect 122 students to graduate including our first group of Master's students.

One of our faculty members has written a book on African theology and I am in the process of doing the proofreading. A 100 pages down (after 3 weeks), 100 to go!

Much prayer is needed for the nation as preparations are made for elections at the end of this year and early next year (1 Tim 2:1-4).

Sadly, one of our students was killed in a road accident as he was returning to the seminary last Sunday evening. Pastor Emmanuel was a Master's student and he leaves a wife and five children. Please pray for God to comfort the family and keep us safe as we, and many of our students, travel.

Thank you for your fellowship in this work.

God bless,

Debbie and David

Update for September

Dear friends,

We send you greetings in the Name of Jesus our Lord.

Thank you for praying for the conference at Otukpo. It rained for almost all of the 240 mile drive there and we saw several recent accidents along the way. The conference went well with a large number of people coming forward for counselling after the Sunday morning service. Others were also counselled after the other sessions by members of the Prayer and Witnessing Team (see attached photo). We believe some people at Otukpo came to faith in Christ and others put some things right in their lives as a result of the conference. Praise the Lord! The journey home was mainly dry and accompanied by some great African scenery along the way. As we neared Kagoro, the evening sun illuminating the mountains of Plateau State was magnificent.

We arrived back at Kagoro right at the start of the new semester. Debbie has fewer students to teach this semester and she is thankful this should make it easier to keep up with the marking. Debbie has three courses to teach and I have two since I am still working as the registrar at the seminary.

Preaching opportunities seem to arrive like buses: you see none for ages and then several all come at once. In August I was asked to preach twice at Fada Gospel Church and I have three preaching engagements lined up for September. The Bible passages to consider on each occasion have already been set by other people so I know where I am supposed to preach from but I haven’t done the preparation yet. Please pray as I work on these while also carrying a full load at the seminary.

Other meetings I am involved in have to do with administration. On 8th we have a long-overdue full meeting of the Academic Committee. I am the secretary for that committee and am working on the agenda right now. SIM has its area council on Friday 3rd and I have a another meeting in connection with SIM on 24th (D.V.).

This month Debbie prepared a meal for a Mission Africa team which is working in the area for two weeks and we had Donna Pridham over for some meals since she has just returned from Canada. On Sunday we were visited by a total of 17 people. Some of these were small groups of children and teenagers who wanted to report how the recent CEF camp went. We don’t normally have quite so many people come on the same afternoon.

As always, we appreciate your partnership with us in prayer (Rom. 15:30).

In Christ,

David and Debbie

Update for August

Dear friends,

Greetings in the name of the Lord.

Many thanks for your prayers as we've settled into life in Kagoro after our time in the UK.

The past month has been characterised by an abundance of rain but we are not complaining even though it means an abundance of mud!

There has also been an abundance of visitors both local and international. Many friends and students have come to sympathise with us and pray for us which has been a comfort and encouragement. A team from the USA (mostly former missionaries) and Africa were based in Kagoro for a writer's workshop and we had them over for a meal one evening. I got a friend to cook up some local food and I made the western food. It was an example of international cooperation to feed an international group of 19 people. Two weeks later, Alan Purser, the team leader of Crosslinks, came to take part in some seminars for pastors and we had the opportunity to enjoy fellowship with him during the meals we shared together.

An abundance of disruption was a feature of two days last week when the Local Government came to drill a borehole just beside our house. It is intended to supply water for the seminary students and staff who live on this side of the road. This means we will not struggle to get water during the dry season. Praise the Lord for this provision and pray that we will be able to work out the logistics of getting the water to all who need it.

The pile of marking is gradually going down but not as quickly as we had planned. We're nearly there!

One thing we have been concerned about is the number of armed robberies in the area during the last two weeks. Last week the chief of Kagoro was robbed which was a huge shock to the community. Two other homes were targetted the same night. Please keep on praying for God's protection.

This Friday I, (Debbie) will travel to Miango for a Board Meeting and David will be taking part in the Primary School Board Meeting. Please pray for safety in travel and wisdom in discussions and decisions.

As well as trying to get ready for the beginning of classes on 16th August, David will be busy with the orientation of new students and the registration process next week.

The date of the conference we're taking part in has been changed to 13th-15th August. David will be speaking twice on 'Knowing your Position as a Child of God' and I will a give a seminar on prayer. Again we need prayer for safety in travel and for the Lord's help in the programme.

I am marking assignments on the book of Zechariah and have been reminded that our work cannot be accomplished by human effort but by reliance on the power of the Spirit (Zech. 4:6). May you know His empowering in all you do.

Thanks again for keeping us in your prayers.

God Bless,

Debbie and David

July prayer letter

Dear praying friends,

We send you greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

UK Trip
We thank the Lord we were able to spend a month in the UK. The plan was to have some holiday time and visit our parents. As the Lord would have it, my father (in photo) passed away while we were there. Many people noted that it was God’s timing that we should have been in the UK before my Dad passed away, be there for the funeral service, and still have some time afterwards with my Mum and other family members. We praise the Lord my Dad was ready to go and we are confident we will see him again when our Lord returns or calls us home (1 Thess. 4:13-18). Thank you to all who communicated expressions of sympathy and for your prayers for the family circle.

Coagh Baptist Church
Please pray along with us for my home church: Coagh Baptist. It has been several years since pastor David Scott retired and though he has been helping with visitation, preaching occasionally, and such, the church needs a full-time pastor. It has not become clear whom the Lord would have minister in that capacity so we are asking the Lord to guide the members as they seek His will.

Work at Kagoro
Now that we are back at the seminary, the stacks of assignments to be marked are calling out for our attention. The new semester starts in mid-August so we need to get ready for that. Thirdly, we have been asked to take part in a conference organised by one of our students. That is scheduled for 6-8th August and is about four hour’s drive from here. Pray we would know what the Lord would have us say at that conference, for the event itself, and for safety in travel to and from the conference venue.

Thanks again for your prayers.

David and Debbie Colvin