A Frustrating but Useful “Weekend”

On Friday morning I felt the beginnings of a very bad cold. I taught my Apologetics class at 11.00 and asked Elizabeth Almanza if she would kindly do the devotional at the faculty meeting as I was feeling unwell. As usual she willingly agreed.

By 4.00 pm I was decidedly unwell but we proceeded with the faculty. This term we have about 86 students, which is up by about 11 on last term. This is partly due to the weekend with Pedro Arana which attracted many people including students from the university who want to know if our lecturers can teach them at the CU. Elizabeth, an ex-member, assured them that we could do so out of our term time. Silas and I will be glad to help. As Pedro had come at the end of the first week there was still time for many who had come to his course, attracted by the cheap offer of Bible Society materials which he had brought, to matriculate with us during the second week of term.

The Pastors’ Breakfast also had an effect with more pastors enrolling for the Pastors’ Course on Saturday mornings and also coming with their young people to encourage them to matriculate.

By the evening I was getting worse as I prepared to teach my church history course. As Lourdes tried the automatic locking system and finally entered the car by turning the key, we realized that there had been an electrical failure in the car at some point while we were having our tea. I rang a taxi and then rang Elizabeth to aske her to ask the students to wait as I would be late. When I arrived down the key to the door into the offices would not work and so I had to teach without giving out handouts which were in my office. Fortunately Maritza Casas was in my class and during the tea break she opened the door and I was able to give out the handouts before the second class. I had also forgotten my reading glasses, which did not help.

By Saturday morning I was really bad with the cold. The main door to the auditorium would not open as the key turned endlessly in the lock, as did the key to the offices. At last by a flook it turned and I was able to enter my office by the back door in order to collect the handouts for the eleven students in my History of Doctrine course. Fifteen students turned up! This was their last opportunity to enter the class. It ranges from technical to Licenciatura levels and is really too wide a spectrum which will have to be changed in the future.

By this time I was really feeling under the weather. The students brought me a glass of lukewarm water for my cough, which I both loathed for its taste and greatly appreciated for their kindness and its effects. At the end of my class I went home to bed.

Reading Robert Letham’s book on The Holy Trinity which had arrived too late for me to incorporate many its insights into my course, I realized that I would have to change the last twelve pages of the course. It is a most useful and highly recommendable book.

By Sunday morning I was feeling a bit better and was able to preach briefly in Pan de Vida where I had agreed to replace Ruben Mendoza who is ill with stones in his kidneys and awaiting an operation in June! Charles Pecharovich’s wife charo was out and feeling well that morning, though she is still far from good health. In the afternoon I rested briefly before going to Manantial de Vida at 5.00 pm to replace Abraham Rengifo, who although he was present, had had an eye injury following an incident on the football field in Ite the previous weekend which had prevented him from much activity, including reading, during the week.

Both services were enjoyable, although the preaching was less than inspiring as I coughed my way through it. But the Lord was good and some people were blessed. As we arrived home we discovered that our telephone wires were down yet again (a constant hazard here as they cross fields where every time trees are pruned the lines are cut). Monday was spent in bed with Robert Letham’s book contemplating the changes to my History of Doctrine course. Lourdes rang Blanca Valenzuela (cell phones are marvellous when they are charged and have credit) to apologize because we would not be going to the Bible Hour and discovered that she was with Ruben Mendoza and they were both awaiting their medical appointments in the hospital, Ruben for an echograph and Blanca for a X ray of her foot, which gives her continual problems.

It is now Wednesday and the changes have been made to the course. Neither the car nor the telephone have been fixed as yet. Nor is my cold completely cured, despite my absence from the Bible Hour last night. I rang Paul Durand, the preacher this term, to apologize for my absence and ask about his wife, who was teaching one of the courses in the Womens’ Study Fellowship this term until she had to go into hospital for a gall bladder operation last week. She is now home and recuperating.

My cold/flu is one of the least of the illnesses which are plaguing us at the moment. Yet the long weekend was good. I learned much about doctrine from my reading and about the practical help which God gives in difficult times as I preached.


PS Obviously our telephone line is now working again

The Integral Mission of the Church

Last weekend (Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th of April) we in the Evangelical Baptist Seminary of South Peru at last had the privilege of having Pastor Pedro Arana present in Tacna. He was due to come last November but could not due to a regional strike which closed the airport. His theme was “The Integral Mission of the Church”, and if he confirmed us in our faith in the centrality of the Gospel in the life and proclamation of the church, he also challenged us as to our practices.

He began by speaking of the need to go to Scripture in order to define mission. There, he argued, we find that God is a missionary God, going out from himself to the human race. Thus he fulfils his eternal purpose by showing his love in Jesus Christ, his incarnate Son. In the incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension and intercession of Jesus Christ God enters into this world. Christ is also present in our preaching and in giving faith and repentance to men and women.

The Word of God is central in the life of the church. It gives existence and purpose to the church. It is our only standard of faith and practice. We must return to this historic Evangelical belief in an age when experience, tradition and even dreams are seen as norms in some churches. It is the Bible which defines the mission of the church.

The church worships God and thus glorifies him. But we must also respond to the signs of the times. We need to understand the times in which we are living, but we also must understand the Word of God in order to understand what God thinks of the present situation.

The church is God’s agent in mission. It is defined in Trinitarian terms. We are 1) the People of God, 2) the Body of Christ, and 3) the Community of the Spirit.

The mission of the Bible is not to teach us the events of the future nor to give us an economic or social plan for society. It is to instruct us in the way of salvation through faith in Christ and sanctification by the Spirit (II Tim 3: 14-17) and this will make us useful in society.

Mission in the Bible is defined in terms of the church and its testimony. We testify by all that we do as the People of God. God made this world and he also made us in his image. Everything we do is in this context. Our worship, fellowship, proclamation, service, stewardship and all that we do should be firmly based on the Word of God and reflect the God whom we serve in a world which needs to know him.

We were seriously challenged as to the place of the Word of God in the life of many Evangelical churches today. It does not have the central place it once did, and should still have. In Peru parts of the Roman Catholic Church are waking up to the need for Evangelism. Some are studying the Bible seriously and are even talking of justification by faith alone. If Evangelicals are sidetracked by other matters, could it be that God is raising up others to do his work with his Word. As Evangelicals we must not be complacent, but must repent of our failings and return to the centrality of the Word of God.

The course was well worthwhile. I personally would love to have Pastor Arana back again some time in the near future to continue to challenge us biblically.

Inauguration of Academic Year 2009 in SEB del Sur

On Monday the 30th of March we held the inauguration service for the new academic year in the Evangelical Baptist Seminary in Tacna. After the Rector had greeted everyone present the Vice- Rector, Silas Ramos opened in prayer and then Abraham Rengifo lead a time of praise. The Rector then spoke of the role of the Seminary as a servant of the churches and thanked them for their confidence in sending students and their help in giving them practical work and assessing them in this.

After singing the theme chorus of the Seminary, “We are the people of God”, the Director of Studies, Graham Williamson, introduced the teachers for this semester. There are twelve in all for different churches and with differing gifts which, we hope, complement each other. Fredy Mandamientos then introduced the folk group Amar, who sang two pieces before the Scripture reading from Exodus 18:19-21.

The new youth pastor of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, Felipe Ovejero then preached on the advice of his father-in-law, from the passage in Exodus where Moses’s father-in-law gave him advice. We must first be before God, then we must teach his word and do so practically. He encouraged the students not to keep their theology to themselves, but to share it with others in the church and beyond if they wished God to bless them. It was a challenging message for both teachers and students.

Following a hymn, Charles Pecharovich, one of our teachers and the Director of our Distance Programme in Puno, closed in prayer. Amar were then asked to sing again and did so as everyone else enjoyed cake and coke.

The service set a good tone for the new term and it is to be hoped that both students and teachers will heed the advice of the fathers-in-law of both Moses and Filipe. Pray for the classes which begin on the 31st of March and continue, God willing, until the 11th of July. May God bless us and make us a blessing to his churches here in the south of Peru.

Breakfast at the Seminary

Saturday 21st of March was a first for the Baptist Seminary in Tacna as we held a breakfast for the pastors of the Tacna churches. Elizabeth Almanza and Rosa Espinosa were up early to prepare juice and eggs and Lourdes and John Brew arrived with the bread and proceeded to set the tables. When Graham and Lourdes Williamson came down they were sent back up to bring down knives and spoons as Lourdes Brew went home to bring back more glasses.

The first pastors arrived about 8.00 o’clock and we were still not quite ready as Lourdes Williamson set to help preparing eggs and Maritza Casas started pouring the juice. It was about 8.20 when we made a start with a short devotional message from II Tim 2:2 about how the Seminary could help the churches prepare faithful men to bring the apostolic message to the next generation.

After Silas Ramos gave thanks we all shared a lovely breakfast, and then our Administrator, Elizabeth Almanza gave us a Power Point talk, prepared by herself and Blanca Valenzuela about what the Seminary had to offer in terms of courses. Graham Williamson, our Director of Studies then thanked everyone for coming and asked if there were any questions. He then ably fielded these with a bit of help from John Brew.

It was encouraging to hear former students saying how much they had appreciated their time at the Seminary and how it had helped them in their present ministries. Timoteo Alverez hit the right note when he said that he had learnt some things at the Seminary but that he still had to continue studying and learning all the time. That is the type of attitude we want to see in our graduates, not one that says, “now I know everything”, but rather one which says, “now I have the tools and know how to study I am better equipped to undertake my ministry for the Lord. Graham then closed the meeting in prayer.

We had hoped to show a video of former students speaking about how the Seminary has helped them but this was not possible due to technical difficulties. Elizabeth Almanza and Raul Sanchez spent many hours preparing this and it was a great shame that it could not be used. Once again Elizabeth has gone far beyond the call of duty in preparing for this event and along with Rosa Espinoza and John and Lourdes Brew was still cleaning up at 11.30 in the morning.

This was a really worthwhile experience and would encourage us to try new initiatives in reaching the churches in Tacna in the future.