February 2025 Prayer Letter
7 February 2025
Dear friends and partners,
Please join with us TODAY in celebrating Twenty Years since the first JBC class, on February 7th 2005, to ‘equip and inspire men and women for Bible teaching ministries’. We are so grateful to the Lord for taking us on a journey none of us anticipated. We are also grateful to you and the part you have played. Without students, staff and partner – wether churches, trusts or individuals – there would be no JBC!
We thank the Lord for the many student testimonies we get to hear of lives transformed, and ministries strengthened. We are praying for the next, and the next, and the next worker to be raised up for the harvest field.
When we started there were around 10 students, and we met at Melville Union Church, with the ‘offices’ in a lounge in a home. The course material was often written the night before, and the setting up and taking down was facilitated by the faithful church caretaker, Tebogo. It was students who bought our first coffee machine and tablecloths, and who enabled the vision to take off by spreading the word. The daily snack was a donut from the local Spar shop.
We now have an amazing and diverse team that throw themselves wholeheartedly into the work, and we have had thousands of students who have shown deep love for the Lord and are growing in him. We are so grateful too for our many partners who have prayed, visited and given to the work. Last year we had around 400 students from over 200 churches, and 143 were graduated. There are 6 sister colleges, and 40 partners in 18 African countries with Training of Trainers Conferences in South, East and West Africa. Well over 1000 snacks and are made every week in our kitchens – from muffins to crunchies to chocolate brownies. We also serve a light breakfast to students arriving early.
There have been tough times: sickness, crime, financial stresses, sometimes relational stresses, but we are persevering and rejoicing in the Lord Jesus building his church. All courses have been written and rewritten by our excellent team. We were the first college to go through the process to be accredited in the new professional space for pastoring in South Africa. Last month the auditor from the Qaulity Council for Trandes and Occupations, visiting Soweto, described us as ‘exemplars of excellence.’
We are very aware that is it by the grace of God that we continue to exist and have growing opportunities to serve. Each year the team have a phrase to help focus our community and a verse that staff encourage one another with at the close of staff meetings and weekly prayer meetings. The phrase this year is ‘let’s pray’. The verse is Romans 15:13 – May the God of hope, fill you with all joy and hope as you trust in him, overflowing with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the verse we are praying for ourselves, our students for you and for all our partners.
Please join our Hallelujah and praise to God.
Thank you. Siyabonga. Asante Sana.
The JBC Staff team
PS if you would like to join those who have included JBC in their will, or give a gift towards the ministry and our twenty year celebrations, please contact brenda@jbc.org.za or click www.jbc.org.za/donate/
Legacy funding will help the college serve the church of Africa and beyond for years to come.
