May 2010

Greetings! I hope you all had a good April and beginning of May. As usual, April passed quickly (and I got another year older!)

It was a strange month. In early April one of our key professors, Armando Alaniz, passed away from cancer. Though he had been feeling badly in the fall, evidently he was poorly diagnosed and the cancer grew untreated. In January he began to teach Hebrew for us, and three weeks into the course one Monday morning, he called to say the doctors had told him to check into the hospital that morning. From there his health deteriorated in shockingly rapid fashion, and he passed away April 9. His funeral was a testament to a life of kingdom service, and we were able to stream it live online for Christians around the world who could not come personally. We will miss his talents and his wonderful Christian character. Please pray for his family in their difficult adjustment.

For most of the month, we also were sharing the last days of my wife’s cousin, who had the same kind of cancer as Armando. She passed away April 27. Needless to say, April was an emotional month and pretty draining.
In good news, the school’s name change was finalized, and Kevin and I have been able to make most of the corresponding changes to accounts, school documents, and website. You see the new logo above, and you can go online and see other changes.

Another major piece of good news was that University had its annual missions special, and as part of that, they funded their part of my salary for 2010, as well as another $47,000 toward the grant projects begun in 2009. This means that of the $134,500 that we lacked for 10 of our students/staff to finish their commitments through July 31, 2011, we now lack only $87,500.

We will be approaching other donors soon about this funding. To that end, we have completed two fund raising videos with slightly different foci, and hope to raise what we need, plus more for other projects and possible more future students. If you have possible donors in mind, please let us know and we can contact them. We can also send you one or more of these videos.

We continue to study technology solutions to improve our technology platform. Vidyo gave us a month-long free trial, and in many ways it looks good, solving several of our problems (no need for static IP, better stability, bandwidth usage, 8 onscreen at once, etc). However, it implies at least an initial investment of $14,000, and conceivably $22,500. We are considering this in the context of our other more pressing needs. We also are studying iVisit, a new software that may do what we need, though so far we are not convinced it will do what we need.

We continue to receive applications for new full-time students for August. If we had funding, we could easily add 6-10 excellent new students in August. Please keep praying for this situation and the funds to respond, if God wills it. We also continue to receive interest in new sites. We still keep in front of us our long-range goal to be in every Latin American country by the end of 2012, which we will do, Lord willing.

In early May, I was blessed to be able to go to the Pepperdine Lectures for the first time. Apart from the wonderful setting and getting to meet new people and old friends, I was invited to speak on technology in missions in both the English program and the Spanish program. We believe there will be results in terms of interest from churches and new sites. I was also invited to stay over on Sunday and preach for the Inland Valley church.

During the Spanish track on Friday, two of the classes offered were brought in through video conferencing—from Selvin Monterroso from the Baxter Institute in Honduras, and Dario Lopera from the Caballito church in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The technology worked wonderfully and the classes were well-received. I hope that this success spurs more interest from the brethren there. Also, since this was the first time someone from Baxter had used video conferencing for a class, I hope the positive experience will result in more extensive participation from Baxter on the RIB network.
This week we finish the second spring cycle of classes, and one week later we begin the fifth and final cycle of courses for the first year. I will be teaching Hebrew 1 and 2, which will be interesting and also demanding for them and for me. I have been spending a number of hours studying and preparing for that.

So I ask for your prayers for all of this—funding, students, technology, future plans. God continues to work in normal and in surprising ways, and we are grateful to be a part of this work. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know. God bless you all!

January 2010

Hello everyone! This month’s report is a double one, as I was out of town the first part of January, and the last 10 days or so of December there were no school activities.
First, we were proud of Andres and Gloria Guajardo and Agustin Garcia as they graduated December 19 as our third graduating class at the Southeast church of Christ. That makes 8 graduates since December 2007—on the one hand, a small number, on the other, a significant achievement. Agustin will continue to work with the church he began in Southwest Houston, and it looks as though the Guajardos will be partly vocational ministers and part-time paid ministers along with Renzo Mayorga and Janna Gonzalez at Clear Lake. Renzo is a graduate of ours and Janna is a first-time student, so we hope that is a blessing for all of them.
Our first-year local and international students finished their second cycle of classes in December and are now into their fourth week of the third cycle as I write. They are interesting, fun to be around, and hard-working. We are turning our eyes and efforts already toward the next incoming class for this August. As always, we are open to recommendations for new students. We have received several international and local applications, and Lord willing, we hope to have the scholarship funds to offer them.
From January 4-11 I was in Mexico visiting three of our sites and the churches and/or schools with which they are related. I spent parts of two days in Toluca with Roberta Zepeda learning about the school and church there. Then I traveled to Morelia for parts of two days with Carlos Camacho (our international mentor), and members of the Morelia church. Finally, I spent a little over three days with Arcelia, where one of our international students is located, and helped the church there with a music seminar during three evenings.
As always, it was good to get to know the church leaders and members in their own settings, and understand some of their backgrounds, formations, blessings, and challenges. I believe that there are blessings for the school and the network from each of those sites. They treated me with love and wonderful attention.
The only unusual things were when one driver hit 100 MPH at some stretches along one highway, and then we were stopped three times during the trip along the highway by Mexican police and soldiers, who twice asked us to get out of the car to search it and question us. But they were very polite, just doing their job of trying to control the drug traffic (against it, that is!)
While doing the financial and end of year summaries during January, here are some interesting stats that I thought were meaningful. I include them here.
• The projects of the institute helped support 55 people, when you count wives and children.
• There are now 45 sites in 17 countries where we have churches, professors, students, or schools.
• There are at least 131 active students, at least half of whom are full-time. Potential students at these 45 sites would be hundreds more.
• The online records show 278 students in 26 countries, though some are more active than others.
• Our records show 202 baptisms in 2009, and this assuredly does not include many more at these sites—these are just the ones we know about.

These are just some of the ways God blessed us in 2009, and I believe 2010 can be even better as we expand our reach even more. Pray for God’s wisdom for us as we move forward.

Steve

December 7, 2009

November was a fruitful month. The most amazing news came from one of our sites in Nicaragua, where several congregations banded together to have a campaign that ended with the baptisms of 58 souls, and the planting of a new church. These same churches also designated evangelists to follow up and teach the new converts. If they follow the same pattern, the other congregations will also make visits in the coming months to the new work.

This same congregation (Tipitapa) also baptized 5 more people in November. There were also baptisms in Sabanilla in San Jose, and in Maracaibo, Venezuela, for a total of 66 baptisms in November. At each international site, as well as in Houston, the students continue with evangelistic studies and small groups, and other nurture activities with the men, women, and youth.

We have the opportunity to expand the institute in Nicaragua, through this same Tipitapa church. Currently they invite people from three congregations around to take classes—I believe there is a total enrollment of over 30 students in three night classes, plus several who are taking a day class from one of our colleagues in Panama, where we also provided the camera.

They are fully equipping a special classroom in their church, and are putting out a brochure inviting brethren from that section of Nicaragua to begin to study. They have several students interested in pursuing full-time studies, so if we are able to obtain more scholarship funds, then that could be a good opportunity. We are discussing ways they can extend the video conferencing classes to other sites. We have discussed this with two other cities as well in Nicaragua.

It’s possible that the live streaming classes can be a quick, inexpensive way for them to begin receiving training, though for now that is more connected to the day, full-time program, and not the night program. And of course the live streaming, while live, is not as interactive as Polycom. But it is very accessible, both technologically and economically. Please pray for us as we continue to talk to and work with these brethren. They are on fire, and it’s very encouraging for us and all those connected to them.

As we move into December, we have two weeks of class left. Then we celebrate our third graduation on December 19, at 2 PM at the Southeast church of Christ. Please come to congratulate Andres and Gloria Guajardo, and Agustin Garcia as they complete two years of study and receive their Bachelor’s of Biblical Studies degrees. Our international students finish their second quarter of studies, and we all anticipate an exciting, challenging 2010.

On a personal level, it’s been a busy health week. Daniel has a stress fracture of the L5 vertebrae that should respond to therapy by January and let him get back to starting on the varsity basketball team. He scored 35 points in his second game, then hurt his back. (But I’m not proud.) Probably if he’d played the last six games, we’d already have NBA scouts calling.

And two days ago I had nasal surgery to clear out a lot of stuff to help me breathe better. It went well, but as I write I am still floating just a little with the pain meds. Please pray for us to be able to recover well and quickly.
God bless you all! We appreciate you.

November 11, 2009

October was another busy month, as we finished our first fall quarter and reviewed how we might improve our program. The seven new international students worked hard, and though the adjustment was difficult in some ways, they all did well in classes, and received positive reports from Carlos Camacho and the local site coordinators. There were 11 baptisms reported for October, with several new small groups started, and more contacts and Bible studies generated.
Though the video conferencing system worked fairly well, we had expected some technological challenges due to the number of sites connecting at once (8 in several courses). This prompted us to investigate a more stable connection and platform for these calls, where the sites could all call directly into one bridge instead of cascading some of the classes second hand. Lance Tolar and I are working on two possible solutions for this.

In the meantime, we discovered an easy, inexpensive, reliable way to live stream our classes through Livestream.com. We have a channel for each classroom in Houston. (www.livestream.com/ribhouston1 and www.livestream.com/ribhouston2). Now we have told the students that if the Polycom connection is too difficult or inconsistent, they should connect to the correct channel no later than 15 minutes after the class begins. There they can receive excellent AV quality, and can respond by chat, live. The program also has the capability to record the class, which we can then make available in the public on-demand library, on the same channel, to be viewed later.

This has turned out to be a great blessing, and much more useful than Skype for our purposes. It also lets up to 50 sites connect to the channel at once, and when the channel grows and is “verified” by Livestream, it can have unlimited viewers. The service itself is free! We feel this can be great aid for those people who can’t afford a camera or are not organized enough to be a Polycom site; they can still access training and encouragement through this.

During the break from classes in October, Ignacio Barcenas came with his video equipment to University Church, and we set up a temporary studio in a classroom. I taught and he recorded the first of two courses over the Life of Christ, some 22 hours of video, which is supplemented by online assignments. The second course we plan to record in March.
During the second week of the break, Lynette, Daniel, and I took a weekend to go to Kingwood and see our friends at that church, and give a report to the elders. It’s always a blessing and a pleasure to catch up and spend time with them. We are blessed by God to have so many people care for us and support us in so many ways in Abilene, Kingwood, Woodland Oaks, and Southeast. Thank you all for your interest, and please continue to pray for us and our work.

October 29, 2009

Greetings! An unexpectedly good and exciting development is that as of this last Monday, (first day of the second quarter), we began to stream classes live over the internet. This means that up to 50 sites now, and more later, can tune in to our two new channels, and see and hear the classes live. Though the listeners can’t be seen or heard in Houston, they can respond with comments and questions by live chat, and interact with other listeners worldwide. This is apart from the students we have by live videoconferencing or in our online program.

This is just another niche that we wanted to fill, which we didn’t think we could do this quickly, easily, or cheaply. We are excited about the possibilities God is providing. If you’d like to see live classes, you can go to www.livestream.com/ribhouston1 or www.livestream.com/ribhouston2, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9-2, and at other times various programming that we loop and record.

Also, our 14 full-time local and international students have already finished the first quarter of classes, and begun the second quarter as of yesterday. They are deep into Greek, church history, Old Testament, small groups, and other topics. We are happy and proud to be working with them.

Please pray for these students and these wonderful events. As always, we’d be happy to welcome your questions, comments, or visits.

August 26, 2009

I wanted to share the news that four young people were baptized in two churches in Mexico (Arcelia and El Paso de Guayabal). One of our full-time students in Arcelia, Mexico, Jertzain Gomez, is active in both these churches. Arcelia is extremely hard-working, loving, and evangelistic, and we are glad to have this news from them. Please keep these new brethren in your prayers, as well as Jertzain and the two churches, that God will bless and lead them.

Steve Austin

July 30, 2009

Greetings! I wanted to share good news about the Hispanic church planted in Irving by Jose Echeverria, working with Sixto Rivera. (Jose graduated from our program in December 2007). Sixto reports that there are now 60 people meeting on Sundays, and an additional 30 that don't yet come on Sunday, but meet in houses. 90 people in 18 months! We are pleased for Jose and Sixto, and this group, and ask for your prayers for them and the work.

Steve Austin

July 2, 2009

What a great month in June! It went by in a blur. Some highlights:

· We received a report from Julio Beitia of another baptism in Holly Hills, Florida, the new Hispanic work in Florida that he is helping establish. That makes 7 this year so far for that church.

· In late May, 13 students graduated from Quito’s school. This group is the first one from there to have taken classes with us all three years of the program.

· We have confirmed three new TGCBI full-time international students to begin in August—Francisco Rojas and Bernie Villalobos in Costa Rica, and Daniel Urdaneta in Spain. We are finishing the intake process, and could have as many as 7 or 8 total in the TGCBI international group. These are students that are completely under our supervision, supported by us, yet live and work in their countries. Then of course we have our local students, and then all the other students in Latin America that we help train, but are not directly supervised or supported by us.

Israel trip

We had our second TGCBI-led tour to Israel and Jordan, with 22 people in the group, mostly from the Houston area, including of course most of our current students. It was a great experience that taught, bonded, and inspired us. We had unforgettable worship services on the top of the Arbel cliffs overlooking the Sea of Galilee, and in the Garden of Gethsemane. We were stunned and amazed by Petra, and the other visual panoramas from Nimrod castle, Mount Carmel, Masada, and the Mount of Olives. We went into the depths of the earth in Hezekiah’s tunnel. We swam in the Mediterranean, Dead, Red, and Galilee Seas. Some rededicated themselves to Christ in the Jordan River. We read biblical stories where they occurred and sang songs tied to many places. It was truly amazing and unforgettable. I am grateful for each person, and the experience. If you haven’t been, you need to go with us in 2011!

Then after the group went home, Carlos Camacho and I stayed another six days and filmed teaching clips in Spanish to use in our online video program and our regular classes. We took 461 clips over 6 days at 26 sites. After the editing, we should have a solid, useful, interesting tool that hundreds or thousands can benefit from (and probably a blooper clip also!). We are tanned and tired, but glad we did it. We got home last night.

Prayer requests

· For God to help us know which students to select for our other open scholarships.

· For our new students preparing to come in August.

· For Carlos Camacho as he is in the opening stage of laying the groundwork for his mentoring work with us.

· For the families of the bus crash in Cochabamba, Bolivia, that took the lives of three church members and injured several others, including one of the professors on the network, Josh Marcum.

June 2, 2009

We have two pieces of good news to report. First, Julio Beitia informs me that Raimundo Garcia was baptized Sunday. This makes 7 baptisms this year already for the new Holly Hills church. Please pray for Raimundo.

Second, our colleagues at the Quito School of Biblical Studies just graduated 13 students from their program. At least some of these will form parts of new teams to go to other parts of Ecuador. One special part for us is that this group of students were in their first year when Quito and we began to share courses by video conferencing. It was a key part of their training--they received classes from us, from others, and of course from their own excellent faculty there in Quito. Please pray for them as they launch out into ministry.

Steve Austin

May 25, 2009

I returned Friday from a recruiting/networking trip to Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama. In Honduras I talked to a group of 50 students, ministers, and educators about our programs and demonstrated the video conferencing. In Costa Rica I spoke with a group of 12 preachers, and in Panama with 8 (all but one of the current group).

I was struck by the similarity of the responses they gave—and they had no idea what others had said. With almost exactly the same words, they told me:

• They had been praying for a way to train workers better where they were, and then we came and invited them to join the program.
• Their countries needed an alternative education option to the extremist positions taken by other schools, and they saw us as that option.
• They were pleased and slightly amazed at the spirit of unity and cooperation shown toward this proposal, since in at least two of the three countries some of the preachers didn’t really work together—but for this project they are united.
• They all said it was an answer to prayer, and God working.

One brother even said, “Brother, you came to Macedonia”—we had answered their Macedonian call!
Lord willing, it looks as though we will fund at least 5 to 8 men in Spain, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Panama in full-time study and work.

Here is a quote from one of the leading preachers in Costa Rica, “Steve, I am thrilled by the quality of the online resources. It is just amazing to see how much you in the States have developed to be able to make such an offer. May the Lord bless you for your efforts and your willingness to serve Him in training others to be His workers.

May 5, 2009

TGCBI Houston
Full-time students Andres and Gloria Guajardo and Agustin Garcia are progressing well, and heading toward graduation in December. The Guajardos continue their work in Alvin, and Agustin in La Puerta in South Houston. They are developing as leaders and examples, and feeling more comfortable in that role.

Kevin Montgomery is continuing to do a wonderful job as assistant director. He is loved and respected by all in his various roles.

It looks as though we have four students confirmed for our next incoming class, which this year changed to begin in August, to better coordinate with other schools around the world. Jannacoeli Gonzalez, Piero and Edita Drago, and Rigoberto Arguera will begin classes August 17—our largest class yet, gracias a Dios!

TGCBI International Recruiting continues for our first five TGCBI full-time students in other sites. We have several interesting candidates in Bogota, Colombia; Valencia, Spain; Arcelia, Mexico; Santiago, Dominican Republic; and Costa Rica. Lord willing, these men will start also on August 17.

Video conferencing

Several new sites have been added this year—Naples, Florida; Asuncion, Paraguay; UCC in Abilene; Ocotepeque, Honduras; and Missions Resource Network, Dallas. We anticipate several more by the next quarter. This spring the network has offered 26 courses by 16 professors.

Online courses

Our online program is gearing up now that we have run our pilot course for close to a year, recorded some more, and mapped out some structural procedures. Our second course, Homiletics, has just been added online, and another should be ready by the end of the month. Lord willing, we plan to average one course a month for the rest of the year. As of now we have 142 students signed up from 24 countries.

Special events

We have pretty well finalized plans for this biannual TGCBI Israel trip. It looks as though we’ll have 22 people touring around 55 sites in Israel and Jordan. It’s exciting!
I’m also going on an 11-day trip to Central America this month. I’ve been invited to be the keynote speaker for the annual Baxter Institute seminar, given for churches and students in Honduras and surrounding Central American countries. I hope to network with many leaders from the congregations represented there, and perhaps have a special meeting to talk about and demonstrate the video conferencing program with them. Then I’m visiting Costa Rica and Panama for two days each, to meet church leaders and potential students for our new TGCBI sites, and see if those two countries are feasible.

Prayer requests

Please pray for all of these people, programs, and activities. Pray especially that we will be attentive to the ways God is leading us, to whom, and where. Pray for safety for all our travels, and for continued blessing and growth of our students and their congregations.

As always, thank you for your support and love. We appreciate you!