GROWING Students Follow Through With Baptism
Topic: Testimonies

January 29th we had our first baptismal service at Arouca Baptist Church. It was a joint service between our church and our sister church, Harvest. Many of those who followed the Lord in believers baptism were students of the GROWING Discipleship Course.

(pictured left to right)Matilda Roberts, Zabida Ali, Techler Roberts, Lisa Alsaran, Larry Rampersad, Madonna Samuel

Larry Rampersad has completed the course. My wife has been taking Techler Roberts and Madonna Samuel through the class, and both of them are very close to finishing.

In addition to these, Sunil Ramjewan also followed the Lord in believers baptism. It has been a great blessing to see him come through the course, graduate , and be obedient in baptism.


click here for more pictures of the baptismal service

Download Problems Fixed
Topic: Updates
There was a problem downloading the Giving Back to God Leader's Manual, Growing Quiz 3, Need of the Nations Transparency, and How to Study the Bible Booklet. Those problems have now been corrected.

Special thanks to my fellow missionaries Mike Hader and Tim Bahula for checking out the site and alerting me to the problem!

New Class Started
Topic: Testimonies

With the start of the new church Marie and I have recruited several new people for the GROWING course. The young man pictured to the right is one of the "recruits"! Akim received Christ during the crusade. The next week he brought his friend, Larry, to church and, Larry, got saved. Now I am discipling them on Sunday mornings before the main service.

In addition to this, Marie and I are discipling a family on Thursdays, and this Wednesday, Marie will start the course with a group of ladies. Pray that God will work in these small group Bible studies and that we will see these people well grounded in the word of God.

Sunil Graduates
Topic: Testimonies

Sunil successfully completed the GROWING Discipleship course and graduated November 7, 2004! Sunil said that he enjoyed the course and felt like he had learned alot. Continue to pray that Sunil will be faithful to church and continue to grow in his christian life.

Bookcloseouts Link
Topic: Updates

I added the bookcloseouts link to the leader resources page. If you buy through our website then I will get a discount next time I purchase Bibles for our ministry. Thanks!

Discipleship at Harvest Baptist Church
Now Playing: Juma teaching the
Topic: Testimonies
Several weeks ago Sunil (the man sitting on the same pew as me) came to Harvest Baptist Church for the first time. Not long after that I got a call from Bro. Ken Guth, a fellow missionary on the island. He asked about Sunil and explained that Sunil had recently recieved Christ at a family camp sponsored by the church Ken is working with. Ken thought it would be a good idea to get Sunil involved in our GROWING Discipleship program. Yesterday, was Sunil's second week and he is progressing well!

The man to the right of the picture is, Juma. You may remember his picture from my newsletter that featured the graduates of the Discipleship Leader's class, a 12 week class that instructed mature believers how to disciple a new convert. Juma and I are alternating teaching the lessons to Sunil. This will give Juma hands on experience in discipling without being overwhelmed. In addition, it will allow me to see how well I taught the concepts of discipling to Juma.

Please pray for Sunil. This week he was sick, but he had such a desire to learn that he came to class anyway. He told Juma and I that everytime he tries to do something for God or better himself in anyway, this kind of stuff happens. Juma and I, explained how our enemy satan doesn't like to see us do things that please God, but we encouraged Sunil to "keep at it", realizing that God will bless his faithfulness!

Updates to Curriculum
Topic: Updates

The GROWING Discipleship website was launched in mid-August of this year. My August 15, 2004 newsletter promoted the material and we recieved some response. At that time leader books and student books were available for download. There was a problem with the cover graphic being centered on those booklets so I've corrected that and reloaded all booklets. At that time I also made changes to the "Relationship with God" lesson, the "Word of God" lesson, and the "Giving Back to God" lesson. The changes were some minor changes that I had been wanting to make to clear up some points on the lessons, also I corrected some typographical errors. At this time I also made the weekly quizzes, transparencies and a couple of additional resources available.

Today, I've added the latest revision which includes changes to the "Word of God" lesson, where I added some information to help the student understand what is meant by inspiration. These changes affected the leader, student, and transparency files. In addition, the "How to Study the Bible" booklet had a portion of text missing from the "Develop it!" section. That has now been corrected.

If you find any errors please bring them to my attention. You can do so by posting a comment to this weblog entry. . .then I can make the necessary corrections.

(Remember some spellings are different on purpose because they use much of the Old English spellings here in Trinidad.)

To download the latest version of the curriculum click below:
Up-to-Date GROWING Discipleship Curriculum Downloads