Our focus for this January term has been on three dimensions of a pastoral human body: the spiritual, mental, and physical. With the spiritual, we have engaged a new Campus Minister to attend to the spiritual concerns of the FTC community. With the mental, we recently hired a new Academic Dean, Rodgers Wekesi who is working hard to equip the faculty with the necessary tools for academic excellence. And with the physical, we have engaged the expertise of Nancy Wafula who is qualified in matters of medical health to attend to the FTC community’s physical health and fitness. Folks can now stop by the health and wellness department for fever or blood pressure checks or assistance with over the counter medications. Students are also engaged in extracurricular activities which we call sports fellowship. On March 16 students and staff went to visit Pentecostal Bible College for sports fellowship and played volleyball and soccer. FTC won in volleyball and we tied in soccer. A highlight for me was visiting with PBC’s principal to share and exchange ideas. Everyone benefits!
Other March events included myself and Academic Dean Rogers Wakesi attending the IPAL (International Program of Academic Leadership) conference sponsored by ACTEA in Karen, Nairobi. There were both African and other international participants and the main topics were Academic Dean as Capacity Builder and Facilitator; Building a Faculty Team as a Challenging Task; The Role of Teachers in Theological Education; Use of Evaluation as a Necessary Tool for the Growth of an Institution among other topics. The seminar, which is the 3rd and last of the IPAL seminars was facilitated by Dr. Steve Hardy, Dr. Fritz Delninger and Dr. John Jusu, all from the Overseas Council in collaboration with ACTEA. We both felt inspired by what we learned and are excited to share it with the school in in-service training. Then last weekend I accompanied some of our students to visit a Young Friends Program all-night prayer vigil in Tuloi Yearly Meeting with over 2000 in attendance! I shared about FTC and made an invitation which is already reaping calls and inquiries.
We are experiencing growing pains! As our enrollment continues to grow we are working hard to find a way to make everyone fit. In January we began the renovation of the White House Men’s Dormitory which had to be condemned a few years ago due to foundation problems. We are pleased that the interior stage is nearing completion, and just in the nick of time! On Sunday 31 March we will welcome more than 80 students for our next 3-week modular class, our biggest ever! The exterior phase of renovation will be completed when more funds are available but please pray for our next challenge which will occur on April 22 when our residential students return for their next term and will overlap with the modular students for 5 days. We are still counting beds but already we know that we don’t have enough dishes, utensils or chairs in the dining hall for everyone to eat together.
These are good challenges and I believe that when you pray for rain, you should get on your knees with an umbrella in your hands!!
Dr. Robert J. Wafula
Principal
Tel. +254 734 728564
Email: robertw@fum.org
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Praises and Prayer
- We are thankful that our satellite campuses are also growing. Please pray with us as we investigate opening a new satellite campus in Mombasa.
- Pray for creative solutions in how to house and feed and teach all of our students in meaningful ways and to keep up with the challenges of growth.