Dear friends,
Can you believe Thanksgiving is already approaching?!? We certainly have lots to be thankful for.
Before I forget, I want to thank you all for your prayers for the dean and the health issues he was dealing with. He has seen much improvement in his condition and was able to join us here only about a week after classes started. He seems to be doing well and we are grateful for his leadership.
Our classes have also been going well. As I stand in front of the various classes, I am often impressed with the honor and especially the huge responsibility of helping to shape the understanding of these students with regards to spiritual matters. I have been reminded of the weight of this responsibility in a special way as I am teaching the book of James this semester which says, “Let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.” (James 3:1) Please keep us in your prayers – that we would be faithful to the Word of God and accurate in our teaching.
I don’t think I have mentioned in any of my general updates that I have the opportunity again this year to go represent my former employer, LEKTRO, Inc. in Dubai. Please pray for this trip which will be from November 11th to the 21st. Pray for safe travel, positive interactions with potential customers, and that Ben would not be too overwhelmed with the extra responsibilities I am leaving to him. Thankfully, due to the way I have been able to arrange things, he will only need to teach 2 class periods for me. This is partly because I have arranged for a guest teacher who, in my absence, will teach some special classes to my third-year Evangelism students on “How to Witness to Muslims”. Pray that these special classes be a blessing to those students. The 1st and 2nd year classes that I have, I am simply making up for by taking extra class periods – some before I leave and some after I come back – so that I can cover all my material. Please praise God with me for this opportunity to work again with my good friend, Eric…and to raise some of my own support, which is always a huge blessing! I am looking forward to the change in pace.
I would also like to ask prayer for our weekend of ‘Spiritual Meetings’ for this first semester that will take place here at the school from November 20th-22nd. The theme is going to be “Salvation”. Pray that those days will be a time of special growth, encouragement and blessing for the students and staff alike.
As some of you may know, one of our major projects this year is to help equip local evangelistic teams with solar-powered audio/video sets that would enable the Jesus Film ministry we have been involved with to continue even after we leave. We have been able to come up with several of these sets but are now in the process of finding local evangelists/pastors who not only have the capability of learning how to run and maintain the equipment but also who are committed enough to this work to come up with a portion of the equipment’s cost. By the time you receive this email, we anticipate having already met with the first of our contacts to entrust him with a set and train him on its operation. Please pray for this pastor (who has a real passion for evangelism) as he seeks to establish a national evangelistic team to minister in his region. Pray that this equipment would continue to operate well for years to come and that there would be much eternal fruit from this particular team’s efforts.
I am going to close here for now. Thank you so much for your ongoing support in so many ways. As I have access to a better internet connection in the next couple weeks, I hope to be able to get some new pictures up on our blog – http://benandjesse.blogspot.com. Stay tuned!
God bless you all!
Love in Christ,
Jesse Long
Mbulu, Tanzania
