ENW began its winter tour on January 22, 2019 flying to Trichy, India, home of Heritage Baptist Bible College and Seminary. This was ENW’s second visit and the continuation of Biblical Counseling Training there. The student body, now grown to 40-45 students, was a joy to teach as they are so eager to learn. The class format consisted of lecture sessions, group workshop/research sessions, and group discussion/open note exams at the close of each day. The class was designed to ensure truth and concepts were embraced and clearly understood for life application and ministry rather than simply teaching as much material as possible and reproducing facts on an exam. My goal was that teaching for life application brought us closer to “causing the students to learn” rather than just “acquiring knowledge”. One unusual experience for me this year was having a 13-year-old student in a college class room. He was a sharp little guy and such a joy to teach.
ENW’s next stop on this winter tour was Tedim, Chin State, Myanmar. This training opportunity is one of our most exciting and very promising in terms of the II Timothy 2:2 model. Our contact, Dal Go Mang (who has translated all written material as well as all oral teaching sessions) is quickly becoming an eager “Timothy learner” for this mentor. It was a joy to hear brother Mang comment regularly about learning and applying these principles of local church ministry and shepherd care.
One of the training concepts I challenged him with (again, flowing out of our II Timothy 2:2 model) was to select a few men he could begin working with in between ENW’s annual meetings. Before the day was over he had accepted the challenge and hand-picked six “faithful, capable men” to begin the process. What a thrill! We have already begun an initial conversation about him and his team reaching out as trainers to another area of Myanmar.
ENW spent two weeks laying the foundation for pastoral private word ministry (i.e. Biblical Counseling). This idea of pastoral counseling was very new to this group of 35-40 pastors. Prior to this training, the pastoral task of “Word Ministry” was essentially preaching one or two times per week. By the end of the second week, this imbalanced perspective was wonderfully adjusted, to God be the glory.
Next year the two-week training will be Foundations for the Christian Family. Our goal for that training is to have all the wives join their husbands for the conference. Having said that, your help with your prayers and finances are humbly requested.
This year two of ENW’s supporting churches each sponsored one week of the conference at $2,500 each. That covered the cost of food and fuel for the men with some left over. It takes approximately $50 per person, per week. Next year, with the wives joining their husbands, the weekly sponsorship (X’s 2 for both weeks) will be about $2,300 per week. This is considering 40 pastors and 30 wives as some of the pastors are single. What we had left from this year’s conferences will be applied to and lighten the financial load for the 2020 conferences.
The choice to have the wives attend with their husbands is a bit unprecedented in Myanmar as it is uncommon in this culture. The conference is sure to be a huge blessing, especially considering the subjects to be covered.
Any gift will be a much-appreciated investment in these shepherds and their wives and is tax-deductible. Gifts can be sent to: Grace Bible Fellowship, P.O. Box 1015 Somerset, PA 15501. Make any checks out to Equipping Nationals Worldwide and earmark it for 2020 Myanmar conferences.
Thank you for your continued interest in and consistent support of training the next generation of shepherds. Chris and I are grateful for those of you who support us personally and regularly as well. Our goal is to be fully supported by year’s end. Please pray with us to that end.
If you know of a church or individual that shares the same passion for training pastors, please contact them and have them go to our website: www.equippingnationals.org or send me their information and I’ll be happy to make contact.
ENW’s next tour is just around the corner as we will be departing on March 14, 2019 for Bolivia and then on to Uruguay. These tours are back-to-back in South America.
We continue to be your co-laborers for equipping next generation leaders for the churches of Jesus Christ, by His grace and for His glory.
