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News from the Rio Grande Do Sul Baptist Theological Seminary
In the past few months things have been very exciting at the Seminary. In March we launched our new Pastoral Formation program which I am coordinating with 12 full-time students and 41 part-time students. The program has a strong emphasis on practical ministry experience. Each full-time student is being mentored by their own pastor. We have classes every evening which include their practicum on Wednesday evening. All of our professors are volunteers and we are very excited about our partnership with NAB which gives us the opportunity to host professors from North America who will come to Brazil to teach a 2-week module course each semester.
On March 20th and 21st, the Seminary, together with trainers from NAB, hosted its last training weekend of the EQUIP Million Leader Mandate course. Over the course of 3 years we’ve had over 200 pastors and leaders from 6 different states in Brazil participating in at least 1 of the training events and this year 42 graduated, having completed the entire training. Now that we have Brazilians trained, our Seminary will repeat the entire 3-year course so that those pastors and leaders who did not get a chance to complete the training will have another opportunity. Also, the EQUIP training is now part of our Pastoral Formation program. We are very thankful to Pastor Norm Poehlke, Vice President of Ministry Outreach at NAB, and Pr Dana Goodnough, Senior Pastor at Pittsford Community Church, for their willingness to come to Brazil and train our pastors and leaders these last 3 years. As we are transitioning to Brazilian trainers, we are also very thankful to Pr Gerson Garros from Igreja Batista Boas Novas (Good News Baptist Church) for participating as one of our trainers at the last 2 training weekends.
Other News
Since the beginning of this year, God has given me the opportunity to participate in a missionary women’s Bible Study…in English! It’s been such a wonderful time to get together with these women to grow together and support one another in prayer. We’ve been using Beth Moore’s Bible Study on the patriarchs. It is also available in Portuguese so I’ve started the same study with the house mothers and Chain of Love!
Thank you so much for your prayers and support!