Our First Graduating Class
If you have kept up with updates in our ministry group on Facebook, The Potter Mission, you would have heard that we just, a few weeks ago, had a virtual Commencement Service for our first class of graduating students! It was sweet to see that take place knowing the backstories of the students and the up and down and side-to-side road that the Lord shepherded them on through the two years.
There were 17 total students who completed the two-year program and a number of them graduated with honors, which says so much considering the massive obstacles they faced. On top of ALL of them being non-native English speakers, they also faced the full effects of the pandemic (some of them had the virus seriously during their studies), a national leadership and societal instability, national economic pain, outright persecution against organized Christianity, and finally, one got married, there were two babies born and some gave care to dying parents. This graduation was a miracle for sure!
We’re hoping to host a “watch party” with any of our local Florida friends later this summer so that you can see and hear from them. There were worship songs in their heart languages and student speakers. Again, SO COOL!
Who and What is Next?
Behind these graduates are another 37 students who have one more year to go. One cool thing is that there are several students who started with this group that just graduated but experienced hardship that led them to step out but rather than quit outright, they joined the next group and, Lord willing will complete the program next June! These students have an even more intense second year coming with many practical courses including 32 hours of course work to help them approach learning about another people group’s culture.
And, guess what? It’s time to enroll our THIRD group. That’s what Bethany’s deep into right now. There are also 37 believers in the same countries and at least one new one, who have begun the application process and are eager to start classes later in July.
Intensives?
It’s always been a desire in our program to be able to spend some in-person time with our students and while we had a few attempted tries that were postponed because of COVID, we finally were able to go forward with having three one-week long intensive courses. This looks like some of our key student advisors and course teachers traveling to the student’s locations and spending a week with three particular groups of students both getting sweet facetime and relationship building with them while also focusing intensely on a few topics that we only introduced in the regular courses.
This time will be a major “shot in the arm” for both the students and the faculty. We SO wish we could have joined these trips!
Did you catch our previous post? If not, please check it out. We need to grow our partnership community and would love fo you to pray with us for that. Check out the post here.https://blogs.ethnos360.org/joel-potter/2022/06/03/we-still-need-help/
Your method of telling the whole thing in this piece
of writing is really good, every one be capable of effortlessly be aware of
it, Thanks a lot. aid ukraine
Hi there I am so glad I found your weblog, I really found you by mistake, while I was searching on Aol for something else, Regardless I am here now and would just like to say cheers for a tremendous post
and a all round exciting blog (I also love the theme/design),
I don’t have time to go through it all at the minute but I have saved it and
also added in your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read much more, Please do keep up the great work.