Senior Store
Happy Friday, everyone! We hope you’ve had another grace-filled week. Here’s another brief update on what’s been happening at Rift Valley Academy and some ways you can be praying.
Last weekend we had our second, and last of the term, Senior Store. Senior Store at RVA is the senior class putting on an outdoor restaurant of sorts on a Saturday. They plan for and prepare a couple thousand donuts, grill burgers and chicken tikka burgers, hot dogs, put together taco salads and a special Korean dish, popsicles, different flavors of ice-cream, and sell sodas.
It’s a lot of work – and mainly done by the students themselves. Adult sponsors oversee student managers who are responsible for their area, like grill, money, clean-up, etc. On Friday night we all work for several hours preparing our menu items, and on Saturday we put it all together and sell to students, staff, and visiting parents. Normally there would be visiting schools who are on campus for a sports tournament but now during COVID, this is not possible.
You may be wondering why we do such a thing as part of our school experience. There are many benefits. We live in a fairly isolated community, made even more so by COVID. Our students can’t just walk down the street for a burger at McDonald’s. Offering all these special items is a way of serving our school community. It also brings our community together – both as a class working together to put it on, and as a campus coming together to enjoy it. And finally, it gives our students experience in planning, managing, and working toward a goal of doing something big. Again, they don’t have the opportunity to drive a couple miles away to get a job. Store provides them with some job experience. We hope you enjoy some pictures of our last couple Stores below.
Moffat
Some of you have asked how things are going at Moffat Bible College. It has been one of my greatest joys to teach these ten students. I’ve had to adjust my curriculum along the way to accommodate the fact that almost all my students are new to Bible School. My expectations started a bit too high. We continue to make our way through the entire Bible in only twelve weeks! These men and women will have a much better grasp of the theme of each book of the Bible than I had at their age – or to be honest, than I had three months ago!
A highlight was getting to take my class to a local restaurant to get to know them a bit better. One of them, Sam, is from India and wants to go back after he graduates, to evangelize Hindus in his home country.
Another one of my students, Margaret, just came up to me today and said she wanted to volunteer for an opportunity I gave the class to start a Bible Study with the security guards at RVA. The guards who work here are not all Christians, but come from all over the country with many backgrounds and beliefs. One of them approached me some time ago asking if I could provide some type of study for them. This is an evangelistic opportunity I’m hoping my students can be a part of!
I also want to share an opportunity for you to help the students at Moffat Bible College as they prepare to become African pastors and missionaries. There is a famine of good theological resources here. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t get a request for books from my students. I’ve already made copies of non-copyrighted material to hand out, but I’m also wanting to bless them with a few good resources from a bookstore I found in Nairobi. If you would like to contribute toward the purchase of these textbooks and copies you can give a tax-deductible gift here. Thank you!
Just three weeks left in the term! Thanks for your part in helping to make any of this possible. We pass on to you what we hear from many parents sharing the gospel in Uganda, Ethiopia, Madagascar, North Africa, and elsewhere – thank you for doing what you do to make it possible to do what God has called us to do! Glory to God!
Thankfully Pray
- Praise God for an amazing term that has not largely been affected by COVID – besides the annoying restrictions.
- Thankful we were allowed to have Senior Store and it looks like we’ll be able to reintroduce Interim for Juniors and Seniors next term.
- Thank God for a successful Spiritual Emphasis Week a few weeks ago. A parent of an RVA student who serves in Djibouti came and spoke on the theme of “surrender” from the life of Gideon for four nights and Sunday morning.
- We are thankful for a good report from the doctor for Lilli’s mother, Kathie, on her cancer. Please continue to pray.
- Pray for our students as they finish up their studies and prepare to return to their home areas. There are still many travel difficulties in getting hundreds of students to places all over the world in the age of COVID!
- Pray for wisdom as we work with our senior, Josh, and where he should go after he graduates this year.
- Pray for the opportunity to have a Bible study with the RVA security guards – for the students that will be involved, that we can find a time that works, and that it would be fruitful in all of our lives, especially in those who don’t know Jesus.
Snapshots
